Scrapshot 4

 

clouds have fallen 

into our lake

overnight 

and the steel surface

ripples gently

a bird flies low

tipping its reflection 

and bubbles surface

teasing of treasure 

below

10/10/22

Scrapshot 3

 

the tracery of lines

against the grey clouds

from the winterised trees

echoes the drips of raindrops

from the umbrella 

over my cafe table

as the car tyres

swishing past

create dashing sounds.

everything is

a line sketch today

7/10/22

Scrapshot 2

 

mesmerised 

I stare at my washing 

spinning and swirling 

in the laundromat washing machine

thinking big thoughts 

about gravity

and planets

and the whirling of the spheres

and how our universe

is made up of twirling objects

like a circus performer 

making us go

wow!

6/10/22

Five months’ catchup and Scrapshot 1

Hello Hello

All you lovely people in internet land!

I have recently become aware that a few people are reading my missives, so I have been motivated to missive again.

To catch up from last time, we still have our lovely cat Jasmine, who is now nearly one. She and Winter our dog, are making friends and we don’t need to segregate them at all now. Well, there may be some touchy moments around dinner time, but Jasmine has become so brave she even jumps over Winter if she is lying in a doorway. And Winter doesn’t chase her!

So peace reigns once more in our tiny house in the sky. But with the added benefit of having a beautiful cat to drape around the furniture and bejewel it. (Can you tell I’m a cat person?)

To catch you up on other news, Miles is currently on a two week long trip up to set foot in Queensland. That will be his fifth Australian State, having visited Cris recently on a trip to Victoria. We pop back and forth to NSW all the time and we lived in Hobart, Tasmania for 6 months when he was 3. Now to cross off South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

Aiden has been focussing on his trampolining which he has been doing once a week for nearly two terms now. He has found it very interesting and is making great progress. It’s also been a great social outlet.

Working on his front flip!

The boys now have all their licences both car and motorbike, as Aiden recently passed his bike licence, on a day with 70 km/hr wind gusts. We are super proud of them both. Miles has been camping all around the state this year on his bike, exploring the back country.

Currently we are looking forward to a two week holiday at the beach at the end of next week! So many preparations are in place for that. We are allowed to take both our animals with us, although Winter will be an outside dog. Hopefully she will cope with the change from being indoors in the sky, to outdoors on the ground. But she’s been super adaptable up til now. We are preparing Jasmine by taking her for walks outside in her backpack. She is very cute.

And now to the next news, I’ve been writing some new poems in a new format I’m calling Scrapshot. Basically a short minimally edited snapshot of a moment in my day. Mostly some time on my morning walks. I am writing them in an analogue book (!) because I want to know where all the poems are. I keep losing poems I’ve written online. Then I decided to draw a little sketch to illustrate it and take a photo of the moment. You’ll see what I mean in a minute. I hope to post a few of these to have a series. I hope you enjoy them!

Til next time, keep on creating!

Love,

Jazzy Jack

moth headbutts the lake

mistaking its reflections 

for reality

17/11/22

Jasmine comes to stay

 Greetings!

We now have a new member of the family.

A little six month old rescue kitten called Jasmine has come to live in our tiny apartment.

She is braving the big dog and the four enormous humans with aplomb. 

Winter (our dog) is desperate to play with her, but we are not quite trusting her “playing” is our playing.

So visits into the shared zone are heavily supervised with one hand on the dog at all times!

But since Winter has had a cat companion before, we trust eventually they will learn to live together most amicably.

Here are a few photos of the little scamp to record the moment.

Love,

Jazzy Jack

BeautyScope 458 : Mind Shadows

awake early

I try to remember 

the wonderful poem idea

that threaded my mind

last night

but the remnants of sleep

cloud it out

and I gaze, entranced

at the sunshine filled wall

entwined with shadows

11/6/22

Going to Pot(s)

  Greetings my fellow humans!

I’m back from the real world with tales of my health. Oh Yay! You say ;-)

The last few days have been quite dramatic to say the least. 

I went off to the Drs for something else and she took my Blood Pressure and pulse. My heart rate was 140bpm. I know I don’t like having my BP measured and it always elevates dramatically. In my head it felt like I was running a race. She freaked out (gently) and sent me off to the Emergency Department at the hospital. I resisted of course because it was not a good day for it.

Cris was doing a talk and not contactable, Miles was preparing to go camping for the night and Cris was going to Tasmania for work the next day. But she painted an awful picture so I complied.

It was not pleasant waiting in the ED as I’m sure you know. Mostly because I couldn’t contact anyone due to abysmal signal. And I had no idea what was happening to my body. When they finally came for me and they saw the state I was in, they were so sweet telling me they would look after me. And they did!

Cris finally made it in and we stayed there for 6 hours being seen and monitored and IVed.

The upshot is postural tachycardia, ?POTS.

I still need to see a cardiologist for a proper diagnosis. In the meantime I’m doing a 24 hour ECG halter, been started on beta blockers, drinking 3 litres of fluids a day, salting everything (yuck!) and monitoring my BP and heart rate for two weeks.

So in all this my yoga and exercise has suffered, as you can imagine. The bending in yoga is challenging.

I’m hoping the beta blockers which are doing a great job with the heart rate will settle me down so I can get back to exercising properly. It takes a few days for the body to adjust.

So there you go. All’s well that ends well.

Cris did his talk, Miles did his camp, and Cris got off to Tassie.

I was so grateful to my family for their support, especially Cris who raced to my side dropping everything including a seminar. And the kids just picked up the slack. Miles and Aiden sorted the camping gear, and Aiden gave himself dinner and watched a movie with the dog. I was a little worried if they would freak out, but it seems we have some strong sons. I’m proud of them!

Here is a recent knitting project I did. I call it my strangled octopus! It was a lot of fun and I’m looking forward to how it will enliven my winter wardrobe. It can also be rotated like a poncho and worn with arms in the holes.

Recently I had my 59th birthday, so this is the outfit I wore to celebrate being still a badass!

The pants and braces I made.

I’ll leave you with the gorgeous view Miles took from where he camped, half way up the second highest mountain on the ACT border!

Til next time, 

keep on creating!(a good life)

Lots of love,

Jazzy Jack

KFC poem

recently a KFC has been built

across the road

-glorious saviour of our view-

but along with it comes

an air conditioner hum

which revs up at 8 in the morning

and shuts down at midnight

our days are now peppered 

with a drone

which my musical mind

insists on copying

and echoing

all day long

there is a real relief

when it quietens at night

my whole system relaxes

how to live with this?

maybe I can use it

as a timekeeper

a sign to go to sleep

and wake up

maybe I can listen to the silence

under and around the sound

the times my mind is occupied

by other things

and maybe I can see it 

as the music of the spheres

the universal hum

vibrating through me

ommm…

10/1/22

2022

 Greetings everyone!

Happy 2022!!

I thought I’d pop in and actually talk to you, instead of writing poetry. Although I have received a couple of nice comments about them. Thanks!

I did enjoy doing the A to Z challenge as it gave me a focus and a topic nudge. I struggle to know what to say, here in blogland and in life.

We had a delicious New Year’s celebration with fireworks for the first time in two years. They were absent due to the fires in 2019, and then due to the ubiquitous pest in 2020. It really felt like life returning to some semblance of normality having them back. Although it was interesting to note the change in philosophy. In the old days they moved them from the lake to the city centre so they could create a vibe and crowd all the people together in one place. This year they moved back to the lake and had three matching shows along the lake to spread people apart. I have to say it was stunning, and they will be much missed if they move it back again. Fireworks and water just go so well together!

Around the fireworks we had a picnic and played cards around the lake and in our campervan Brumhilda.

Following that we went home for some more snacks, The Blues Brothers movie, and the Sydney fireworks on TV. Along with some incidental fireworks from a house in the distance.

We had no issues with our dog Winter, despite our misgivings. She seemed pretty chill, until we were woken early the next morning with a fire alarm. As I’ve mentioned to a couple of friends, we do pay for our view. We seem to have an inordinate number of fire alarms which never end up being anything except some smoking in the car park etc. I try to be grateful for the protection of this system, but it becomes more difficult to manage when woken in the middle of the night!

That said, we are still having a blast living in our high kingdom in the clouds (as it feels to me). We are on the 12th floor, so not tooo high.

Currently the boys are having fun exploring the world with their new motorbikes. Yes, I have two kids on their Learner’s at the same time. Aren’t I a brave Mum? For Christmas we gave them motorbike accessories so they could go motocamping, which they have done once already. I think the fact they were both in a two person tent was a little tricky, but they made it work and are planning more outings.

I am often asked how I cope as a Mum with kids on motorbikes, or why I allowed my kids to have motorbikes. My answer is always that I want my kids to run their own lives and live the lives they are passionate about. I couldn’t squash their obvious desire just because I had some fears. As long as we’ve spoken about the dangers and we can see them addressing them, then I have to let go and support them, no matter what. It is their life after all. Especially at this late teen/early adult age.

However I feel unschooling has taught me a lot in this realm as that is the foundation pretty much for unschooling. Working together, and listening to each other, rather than a top down power approach which can turn kids off parents, and vice versa. We all need to be listened to, and kids are no different.

I am currently typing this sitting in Brumhilda after a rain storm, including hail, has battered me a bit. I was a little worried about the integrity of this ageing fibreglass roof to withstand the ‘giant hailstones’ that were heading our way, but I must have been lucky, because the hail wasn’t even a centimetre across.

Brumhilda has been a wonderful asset to us as a way to escape the apartment without having to sit out in the elements on a rug. With a table we can use it as a work space as well.

I also enjoy doing hand sewing while listening to podcasts. Currently I am piecing together some eco dyed bits and bobs to make a skirt. They were too good to abandon.

My mornings are mostly taken up with exercise at the moment. Recently I had a diagnosis of osteoporosis, so I have started treatment along with some weights exercises from my Physio, while still trying to continue with my yoga and walks in the mornings with Cris. It is a lot to take on, but hopefully it will make me buff! Ha! I’m certainly starting to see a change in my body. The goal is to eventually be able to start running. Yay!

This year we continued our tradition of videoing a time capsule to leave for ourselves next year this time. We watch last year’s video about our hopes and dreams and what has been happening that year, and then film a reaction to it along with what happened this year and what we hope to achieve in the next. It’s a nice little memory to have and look back on in the years to come, and helps us take a moment to reflect on where we’ve been and where we would like to go.

There is a part of me after reading that last paragraph, that wants to tell myself, ‘but what about the present’? I am making time to study people like Byron Katie and Eckhart Tolle who speak about not living in the past and the future, but living mostly in the now. I love this philosophy and find it very helpful. Hopefully I’m not upsetting the apple cart with our time capsule tradition!

Well, I might head home now the storm has passed and finish this back at the apartment.

Hello again! It’s a couple of days later and I’m sitting at home waiting for the effects of my booster shot to fade. I am feeling very privileged to live in a well developed country that, despite all its ups and downs, still manages to pull items out of its hat. I choose to focus on the blessing of my health being augmented.

Well, for someone who professed to not know what to say, I’ve rabbited on for ages!

I also want to apologise to all the blogs I follow. If anyone is reading this, know that I have tried multiple times on multiple devices to leave comments, but somehow the system won’t let me. It accepts them all and then they just disappear into thin air. Maybe some blogger in another universe is getting some nice random comments I like to imagine. Ha!

PS You can’t see it here, but I cut all my hair off again. I needed a break from the floofiness. But it was a fun experiment. I haven’t missed it one bit! Here is a photo if you want to see it

https://naturalmedley.blogspot.com/2021/12/a-to-z-poetry-challenge-2021-s.html

although it’s grown an amazing amount in one month. Almost as if it’s thanking me for taking all the weight off.

Alright, we’ll leave it there for now.

Til next time,

Keep on creating!

Love,

Jazzy Jack