I had hoped not to end up writing about the pandemic, but like the damn thing itself, it has become unavoidable. Apart from those whose occupations entail meeting the Coronavirus head on, life is being lived in low gear and in a minor key. We are in a permanent state of crouch, feeling the weight of shared anxiety and uncertainty,…
Tag: life
I Can Dance, But I Don’t Want To
Shuffle. Shimmy. Shake. The external is merely a dance. It’s the dance we do to get off the dance floor. You know the one – you have to get to a point on the other side of the room, but the dance floor full of maniacally enthused glitterbugs is unavoidably en route, and because you live in the real world…
In it together
The air is polluted and it is unsafe to be outside. What looks like early morning mist is in fact a deathly haze of smoke blown west from the bushfire-ravaged eastern state. I have foregone my morning swim and cycle to work in deference to the ominous atmosphere that has dropped an unloving cloud of murk over the entire city.…
Doing it for life
I swam in horrible conditions the other day. It was not long after dawn on a mucky Monday morning and big, unpredictable swell, with huge surges of cold, dirty water, was moving me around like so much flotsam. I tried to use my usual landmarks to keep my bearings while at the same time avoiding being swept on to them.…
Renewable
Each day must be begun anew. Sleep is the restorative. Waking is the opportunity. To open your eyes and be able to say “still here, still alive” surely has the potential to infuse you with renewed vigour and appetite for life. Somehow, no matter how paltry your contribution to humanity, no matter how insignificant your squawks and wirbles, you’ve been…
The Pinnacle
What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculties. In form and moving, how express and admirable. In action how like an angel. In apprehension how like a god. The beauty of the world. The paragon of animals. And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me. No,…
Liver complaint
I wanted to write about Prometheus, but I couldn’t find the right peg to hang him on, so I just ended up feeling pretentious, as if I was secretly aspiring to be outed in Pseuds Corner. I was going to propose that we are all somehow in defiance of the gods, that the wars that rage within us are analogous…
Not you again!
“This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same…
I am not a shark
Oh, the shark has pretty teeth, dear And it shows them pearly white Just a jackknife has MacHeath, babe And it keeps it way out of sight When that shark bites with his teeth, dear Scarlet billows begin to spread Fancy gloves, wears old MacHeath, babe So there’s never, never a trace of red …
A little, not a lot
The change of seasons is upon us. The gasfire-warmed mornings of a couple of weeks ago have given way to more temperate conditions. Indoors, for my early-morning writing routine, I am no longer wearing a scarf or chunky neck-warmer, nor am I double-socking. (Yes, Melbourne homes really are that cold in winter and I have much anecdotal evidence to support…
