NYE2010

It's New Year's Eve 2010, and today I'm making an exception from my frustrating tendency to continually grasp for the unattained. Today, the end of a year, the end of a decade, I'm instead swimming in recognition, not of how far I've yet to go, but how far I have come.

This time ten years ago, I was working at the Stanthorpe Border Post, excited and nervous about my move to the big time at the Warwick Daily News. Little did I anticipate that move would take me, step by occasionally-backwards-step, all the way to Canada and this life of perpetual hope.

In the last ten years I have built a career then lost it from my ambivalent grip, watched someone die, kissed my baby nephew, wrote good words and bad, won some awards and lost others, destroyed all respect for myself and painfully pieced it back together, and through it all yearned for something I couldn't name. My feet led my heart, my heart fought my head. I chased things I should have let go, and let go things I should have chased. Mistakes were myriad.

And then -- be it thanks to the wisdom of ageing, or simply the learning of lessons life kept dumping on my doorstep -- everything has come to this moment of perfection. Tonight, T. and I will celebrate the end of a decade, and the beginning of another with so many dawnings in our world I fear we will be dazzled to blindness.

A year ago, I was  scratching in the sand, busying myself filling bag after bag to hold back the flood of desperation I knew was rising all around us. Tonight, we step into a new world. T. is striding confidently in the direction of his dreams, grounded in the soil of goodness, reaching for a pure light. The boys are wonderfully close, and the ties are binding strong and gentle around us all. I am about to start a job so perfect I'd dared not imagine until now, beside a wonderful man, a dazzling love, and a life filled with good friends and family far and near.

Today, may you also let go of the to-do list, and take stock of this moment, your moment. All of that pain and struggle and love and laughter, the loss, discovery, and challenge of simply leading a good life, it is transcendent. 

Bring on the light.

I am finally ready to see.

A brave new frontier

The one, or maybe two, of you who consider this blog semi-essential reading get a reward today: You are the first to know that my life as a bum will officially come to an end in January when I start two -- count them, TWO -- jobs. 

I am to be the new managing editor of Alternatives Journal, a peer-reviewed journal about the environment and sustainability. It's absolutely my dream job, and I finally get to use my powers for good instead of evil! Pay=low BUT good karma=high. I'm good with that.

I will also be teaching a course at Conestoga College, in its new media convergence graduate diploma program.  I've never taught before, but these kids have never worked in a newsroom before, so they won't know the difference. Kidding! It's going to be great, and I'm busily preparing class plans, assignments, lectures and the like. It's a six-hour class each week - wish us all luck!

Right. I'd better go actually tell people now.

x

Happy snaps

It's snowy outside, I have fresh coffee by my elbow, and I thought I'd share some of the things making me happy of late.

There's this little guy, just bursting to flower in my lounge room. It's the first time I've had an Amaryllis, and I'm looking forward to the mucho-mucho-bloomage. There's, like, five wannabe-flowers in there!

Making easily-postable gifts to send to Australia is tough. Making them look good is even tougher. Thus, my hand-drawn looks-just-like-a-present envelopes, which I then put inside boring looks-just-like-a-normal-envelope envelopes. Here's a close up of my effort:

Hope the recipients like them!

Other things making me happy:

My friend's VERY pregnant belly. I got kicked almost across the room when I put my hand on her stomach. (Note: That is not me in the picture, putting a hand on her stomach.) Breeding is such a weird, weird thing.

My bathroom, stripped of wallpaper and lathered in Bavarian Cream paint. I'm tempted to paint our entire house based on the names of the colours now. Although, come to think of it, that'll just make me hungry all the time...

And this guy. Who now roasts his own coffee. Could a gal ask for any more?