Thanks for all of your support. I am gradually resubscribing to the many blogs I have missed over the last months of various troubles. The last few weeks have been hell for my whole family, since the car accident, and with one niece still in hospital, the anxiety is high so obviously blogging isn’t on my priority list at the moment. I so appreciate all the good wishes, prayers and thoughts sent to my family, particularly to my nieces and nephew – thank you.
Juliex
Note to blog friends
Another blog?
I had intended to take a break from this blog for the weekend so that I could work on the dementia articles and stay overnight at the nursing lodge. The latter was impossible due to the person-in-charge needing this idea to be taken up the ladder but also because Anthony wanted me to come home to take care of the farm (Ming has gone to Perth for the weekend). I was surprised by Anthony’s reaction, and I await the hierarchy’s verdict on future stayovers, but at least I have redrawn attention to the possibility, perhaps more seriously than I did previously. I stayed with Ants much later than usual, until he said, “Jules, you better go home before it gets too dark”.
So now I am home, Ming’s away, I’ve put the birds away, fed the dogs, boiled my corn cob (latest addiction) and am playing around with a latent blog (with the ridiculous title of philosophication) that I registered with WP ages ago. I’ve done the ‘About’ page and one post but I am not quite sure how to get it ‘out there’ except to put the link here.
The reason I am doing this is because, as this is my general blog, I want to have another place to draft/write articles about dementia because this has been a long-held research (and now personal) interest. After all, my PhD thesis was about Alzheimer’s disease and a revised version of this was published as a book in 2001 (We’ll be married in Fremantle), but I don’t want to inflict dementia-ridden articles on readers of this wings@things blog; hence another blog. I did try to do the separate page thing on this blog but I couldn’t figure it out.
So here is the link for anyone who is interested. I am very excited to be writing material that may be publishable beyond the blog, but I am not even sure if I’ve set it up properly so here is the link for anyone who is interested:
Self-censorship
During the time I taught creative writing units at the university, I remember saying to the students, “Just pretend your parents aren’t looking over your shoulder and write freely; don’t censor yourself!” This was very effective in some ways (a lot of powerful writing was produced), but it was also problematic in that sometimes I would become privy to secrets never shared before. So, over time (I taught for nearly 20 years), I changed my instructions to, “There will be no gutspill please!”
Well, blogging is now a well-established form of published writing and self-censorship is probably a conundrum that many bloggers wrestle with. When I began my blog here on WordPress, I used my own name but, in an attempt to be semi-anonymous and private, I called Ming, ‘Son’ and Anthony ‘Husband’. Eventually I began calling them by their real names (with their permission) and I felt comfortable doing so despite some of our situations being uncomfortable.
This week I have had the self-censorship wrestle with myself, yet again, because I was writing about Ming, and I realized that maybe the issues we were having were better kept within our little household. So I deleted two posts (realizing of course that they are still readable via email notification but I offed them from the blog).
But yesterday’s post deletion (my 3rd in two days – how embarrassing) was different. In that post I had related an anecdote that could have been misconstrued as black humor about an issue that is, and never will be, funny. I didn’t receive any negative comments, but I still felt a bit yucky about my anecdote; hence the deletion.
Today, I discovered a blogger whose experience with grief and loss is so profound that it took my breath away. I am yet to make contact with her, beyond following her blog today, but I want to because she has drawn my attention to issues I didn’t want to recognize, not just in my own life, but in the general community.
I am glad I deleted that post.
PS. Internet is only working spasmodically until new modem is figured out.
It will soon be Spring!
In Spring (only three days away), our Internet will work for longer than 30 minute bursts, I will resume blogging in an organised fashion, it will stop raining, Ming’s spinal problems will begin to resolve, I will get back on my bicycle, bring Anthony home more often, eradicate (humanely) the rabbit plague on this farm, learn to play the harp, continue baking sticky date pudding, grow tomatoes, sit in the sun, be a better friend to my buddies, reconcile with my in-laws (maybe), embrace the birth of my first great niece, get our finances in order, buy some laying hens to replace the ones the fox got, learn how to use the whipper snipper, prune the ancient roses, resume writing the novella, take faultless photos of the birds, dress to kill, hug anyone who is huggable, and use strawberry moisturiser.
Until then, since our telephone wiring is so dodgy, I’ve had the landline disconnected, and am mostly reliant on my Ipad for Internet. I’m not fast with this IPad yet, so have decided not to even try to keep up with blogs, Facebook etc. We are trialling a new modem thingy.
Tomorrow we see the spinal surgeon again to see what can be done to fix Ming’s injury to the titanium. Anthony wanted to come with us, so today I had to explain why this would be impossible with a 5 hour round trip. He doesn’t accept how difficult he is to lift.
To end this higgledy post, I’ve had my first harp lesson! See you in Spring.
Blog-cleaning
During yet another short blog break, I’m in cleanup/tidying mode so have tried to catch up with comments, and have visited other people’s blogs unhurriedly and with pleasure.
But I’m a little bothered by a couple of things:
1. I vividly remember re-blogging somebody’s post when I first started. At the time, I didn’t understand what re-blogging was and, as soon as I realized, I deleted it. It was about mothers and daughters. I apologize to that blogger for my ignorance.
2. During May this year, I took a blog break by unsubscribing from the nearly 200 blogs I’d subscribed to. Why the hell did I do that? Now I am still re-finding people. If I haven’t yet re-found you, please let me know!
One beautiful realization is that it isn’t necessarily necessary to engage with every single blog post (especially if the blogger is prolific!) There is no obligatory rule about this and silence is okay – such a relief!
I think, when I resume ‘proper’ blogging, on 1st September, I might do it on a weekly basis, rather than daily. Just until my heart catches up with my voice. So much is happening, and so much is not happening – argh!
Thanks.
Happy
I think feeling happy is a bit different to being happy. Maybe this is because when you simply are happy (because your bank account, love-life, health, job, family and friends etc. are all okay) you don’t notice the happiness; you don’t appreciate it. But when you feel happy, you are noticing the fragile edges, blossoms, and sunsets of whatever happiness is and you are learning how to create it day by day by day.
Today, my happiness was hugging my baby peacock, having lunch at an Indian restaurant with my friend/niece, Jane, buying baking utensils for my new cooking phase, watching TV with Anthony in the nursing lodge whilst giving him the last of the sticky date pudding with lots of thickened cream, knowing my ma will be home soon from Scotland, riding my bike, watching ‘Undercover Boss’ with Ming, and looking forward to tomorrow’s unfolding.
Thanks!
Just checking in halfway through my blogbreak. Thanks to all for comments on last few posts – I really appreciate it and had intended to reply, sorry!
I’ve temporarily unsubscribed from most blogs to give myself a break, but will get back eventually I hope.
It’s just that I am so sad at the moment, about Anthony, because of how fast the dementia is happening now.
Ming, Gutsy9 and I are all fine which somehow seems wrong. I miss Anthony so much.
Blogbreak
I’ve been finding it increasingly difficult lately to keep up with all-things-blog, due to this and that, so I will be taking a blog sabbatical for the month of May and will see you in June. I will still visit blogs, and try to answer comments but, yeah, I need a blogbreak!
Taboo
No matter how honest and revealing a person is, either face-to-face or in a blog, there are certain things that are unsayable, secret, too personal.
There have been a couple of incidents at the nursing lodge lately where Anthony has behaved in a way that is disturbingly out-of-character.
The ungentling of my gentle husband’s brain is causing him to do and say things that are horrible. Taboo.
jmgoyder 
Who are you and why are you so nasty?
by jmgoyderI have a rather nasty taste in my mouth at the moment because I have been reading about some people’s taste for nastiness, or cyber-nastiness to be exact – well that’s what I call it anyway. A few moments ago I saw a lovely photo on Facebook (yes I am back on it!) of a black man reaching his hand out to a white baby.
I liked the photo and its caption and found it heart-warming. So I was surprised to read some very nasty comments and interchanges in response to the photo. Various critical points were made by some and phrased politely, but other people became quite hateful in their comments.
Lately I have been seeing more and more of this on the internet – people voicing nastiness with such ferocity it is breathtaking. Of course, with Facebook and WordPress and other social media sites, there are rules, but obviously this is almost impossible to monitor unless someone is being obscenely abusive.
The thing that most bothers me about this trend is the anonymity with which nasty comments, statements, opinions etc. are made. I read a couple of news feeds and often a human interest article will be attacked by certain readers and then readers will attack each other with no respect for the fact that we are all real people. Many of the nasty things written on social media sites would never be said face-to-face because in real-life, real-time situations, there is usually an expected decorum. Not so on the internet. Anybody can pretty much say anything they like to anybody else behind the safety of their computer or phone screen.
But why? Why do so many people expend so much time and energy on being nasty on the internet? I was the recipient of some rather nasty commentary on my friend’s blog the other day. The person commenting was not known to me so I was flummoxed by his passionate diatribe against my rather innocuous comment and he proceeded to crowd my friend’s post with long-winded speeches against me, and against my friend who rose to my defense. I responded a few times then gave up because I realized everything I said just seemed to fuel his irrational fury. I would love to recount the dialogue but respect my blogger friend’s privacy so suffice it to say that my initial comment had nothing to do with politics, race, gender or religion – ie. it was not an attackable comment!
The experience was a learning curve for me, so I am glad for it because it has made me even carefuller of my words than I already was – ha. But the main thing this experience showed me was what cyber-bullying might be like for a young person. One of the things this particular bully did was to make assumptions about me and to label me; when I didn’t immediately reply, he equated my silence with guilt; when I did reply, he launched another sermonesque attack. Even though I was astounded and felt extremely misunderstood, I wasn’t hurt – more bemused I guess.
But if I had been 12 or 15 or even in my 20s, I would have been profoundly hurt and affected. And this, I think, is what is so worrying about social media for our beautiful young people. If you read of cases of cyber-bullying and its effects on so many young people (including suicide), it is easy to brush this off as a passing phase, a bizarre incident, or ‘my kid isn’t on Fbook so s/he’s okay’.
I am not saying that my above experience was a case of cyber-bullying exactly. After all, I am an adult and I can take it. But if I had been a kid, I would have crumbled.
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