Not so permanent permafrost

Have you heard? About the permafrost melting? The UN has reported today that with the thawing of frozen soil in the arctic, we are all in deep, deep trouble. Environmentally speaking, that is.

Now I don’t know about you, but this just made me panic with a capital ‘P’. Apparently we’ll start to see the effects of significant global warming as early as 2100. What! 2100? This is worse than the time my grade 2 teacher explained that one day, billions of years from now, the sun is going to explode and then the human race is going to be wiped out. Forever.

I don’t want it to get any hotter than it already is. Tomorrow’s forecast has predicted 38 degrees. 38 degrees in November, in Melbourne is not usual. Or fun. Especially when there’s so much asphalt and bluestone around. I don’t want the sea levels to rise. I like the coastline just as it is, thank you very much. I don’t want our earth to choke in greenhouse gasses. I don’t want people to suffer.

I’ve gotta go and plant some trees now. Right now.

Rabbit sisters

Once upon a time there were two sisters. One was, let’s say, nine and the other was seven. One day they went to a festival where they went on big trampolines. Because they were strapped into harnesses they were able to jump higher than they’d ever jumped before. It was like they were flying. Now and again, the girls would jump and spin around, upside down, squealing and shrieking. They were so excited that it was hard to tell if they were having fun or if they were terrified.

After their turns on the trampolines were over, the two sisters ran quickly towards each other.

‘Oh my god, that was the best fun I have ever had in my life! I loved it so much!’ said the older sister, breathlessly.

The younger sister spat out her words, ‘That was awful, I hated it. I don’t even know why you liked it so much.’

Without hesitation, the nine year old told her sister, ‘The reason I loved it so much was that I was doing it with you, and I love doing things with you. I thought maybe we could go and do it together again?’

‘I’m never doing it again, you can do it yourself.’ The younger sister was adamant.

So the sisters walked off together, away from the trampolines. Soon enough they were distracted by a ride down the big slide, which the older sister found boring and a turn on the dodgem cars which the younger sister thought was too noisy and jarring. Neither sister could agree on an activity.

When they found the baby farm animals, they went into the enclosure and each sat and held a lovely quiet rabbit.

‘I love this.’ The seven year old was beaming.

‘I love this too,’ said her sister.

They giggled, together.

Hair

Ok, here’s the thing. I’m vain about my hair. Which wouldn’t seem obvious really because I only get my hair cut about two or three times a year. It not like I look in the mirror constantly. It’s just that I like to know that my haircut is OK, then I don’t think about it. I don’t check it, I just leave it be. That’s why when I find a hairdresser I trust, I stick with them.

I’ve always been this way. As a very young girl, I remember taking over my ponytail duties because my mum just didn’t quite get it right. As an eight year old, I curled my long straight hair for a special event and my aunt was surprised that I felt the need to do it. When I was ten, my mum took me to her avant-garde hairdresser who gave me a cool asymmetrical style which I grew to hate as soon as the girls at school said it looked like a mistake.

In my early teens, I had a perm and was so distraught at the frizzy result that I ran shrieking down the hallway at home. When washing it several times didn’t dull the unwanted curls, I had it cut as short as I could. In my late teens, I shunned haircuts, growing my hair as long as I could, dyeing it a glossy black and adding coloured streaks to the front, just to be different, like everyone else.

By the time I was at uni, I was sick of my hair vanity and one late night at a friend’s house, with great drama, I chopped my long ponytail clean off at the hair band. The result was a surprisingly slick concave bob. After this I cut my own hair for a while. You can get away with it at art school. Then came dreadlocks, then the dreadlocks were cut off into a pixie cut, then years of various short hair styles, long again then short again…

Phew, it feels good to admit my hair vanity. And I know there are more important things in life to worry about. I don’t know how everyone else feels, but I suspect that we all have our funny little ways with our hair. Whether our hair is long, short, spiky, smooth, coloured, natural, curly, frizzy or shaved, I guess it’s all about having hair that makes us feel like us.

Living on Paradise Street

Well, the house was on stilts. Small green frogs lived beside the steps leading up to the house and he would often pick them up and say a friendly hello as he came home. A freight train chugged by at regular intervals, shipping sugar cane with a rhythm you could dance to. When it rained, the hockey fields behind the house flooded making a shallow and slick silver lake. After hockey games, he would go and collect used bottles to refund, until one day he was able to buy himself a shiny new dinky toy car. His mum accidently drove the car too far under the house once, crashing into the stilts. It was very lucky that the house didn't fall and that she wasn't hurt. He also had his very own pile of dirt which he would stand on top of, viewing Paradise Street and feeling that he owned it all.

Home

When it snows I want summer

When it's warm I want snow

It's the way that I've been

As long as I know.

After a big salty meal

I'll want something so sweet

If I've been in the forest

I'll crave a busy, bustling street.

On a train through the cane fields

Or in a ski lodge

There are things that I want 

That are always at odds.

If I've worn my black shoes

I'll wish I'd worn red

I'll regret choosing daisies

Instead of elegant orchids. 

If you ask where I'm happiest

I'll say, 'Oh, I don't know'

But the truth of the matter

Is that I'm happiest at home.

Little everyday tsunami

Hokusai lost everything. Starting over at a time when he should have been taking life at a slower pace, he kept making art. It was after this time that he achieved his greatest success. Strange to think that we know him best for his archetypal image ‘The Great Wave Off Kanagawa’, which he created as an old man, after he had worked all his life as an artist. An image which he created several times in different perspectives.

We all have our archetypes as artists. Our themes, the stuff we like to draw over and over. Sometimes we know why we repeat the images. Perhaps we like the form, or it reminds us of a happy moment, or we are confident creating it and we want to tap into that confidence. Other times, we may not know why we draw something repeatedly. The meaning might emerge at a later time, or it may not.

As kids we copy and repeat images to learn how to master our skills. That’s part of our development. At some stage we build our own repertoire of images we love to draw. For Hokusai, the wave is a cultural and historical representation of the time in which he lived. It’s a powerful reminder of nature’s effect on our human lives.

For me, the wave is a little bit of a tsunami in everyday life. Scattered down the supermarket aisle, looming on the meeting table at work or rising in your own bath at home, the wave can show up, unassuming and gentle or as a tremendous threat to the moment. Thankfully, everyday tsunamis eventually just become calm pools of water. Just like Hokusai, we keep going, doing what we love and making images about it.

(Hokusai (1760-1849) was a Japanese artist producing work in the Edo period)

The Woodpecker

Sometimes it kinda feels like this, all day long. You know, peck, peck, peck peck, peck. My friend made the comparison over a cup of tea and I laughed when she said that she felt like a tree some days with three little woodpecker birds pecking at her. Yep, I know what she means.

Thankfully there are all the other times where our children amaze us with how absolutely exquisite they are and make us laugh at unexpected moments with the funny things they do. It makes the woodpecker days more bearable.