OK, so lately I've been doing that thing that I always do i.e. spending my time doing the one-woman internal debate routine. I swear if there was ever a medal awarded for the most internally undecided, it would go to me.

No one or nothing I know of can beat me in... well, beating myself up.

I have insides the consistency of jelly. I quiver and shake and fall into a gelatinous mess debating with myself about the pros and cons of anything I decide to do.

So you can see that the decision I've made to return to school has given me a major case of internal debating Olympics. Complete with Greek wrestling and ego archery.

One minute I'm 'out there' doing something brave, taking on school subjects that I would never in my right mind have ever contemplated doing back when I was actually at school,  mainly because I'd considered them totally light-weight.

Art? C'mon. Music? Pfft. Give me a break.

I was all about history and science and solid things.. factual things. Not rhythm and blues and weary looking boots..

All this internal too-ing and fro-ing is, of course, a field day for my inner naysayer. "How will you ever get a proper ATAR with those subjects?" She moans.. "You can't even play a musical instrument more complex than a comb and paper kazoo.. and as for art... dot -to dot ain't gonna cut it."

So I sat down and politely asked the nay-sayer to shut up for a minute while I quizzed myself about what the hell I was doing, because I never met anyone that could tell themselves how much they apparently can't do, as I can.

So what if I chose badly? I like music. I like listening to it. I respond to it. I can't play an instrument, but I can sing - quite well too for someone who's never had a lesson and was never encouraged to use a natural gift. I like art. I see things in paintings, I like how the artist transfers thoughts and feelings to another medium. I can't paint, or draw, or do anything arty. But I can appreciate it like mad.

And if I've made a huge mistake, I'll swap subjects. 

This line of logic shuts Ms Naysayer up for a bit. I can see her raise an eyebrow before she slinks off to think up another line of attack. 

Following my heart instead of my head has never been easy for me, and yet I think that my heart feels a wisdom that my head can never connect to. My mind is too busy thinking whilst my heart just knows what it knows.

And all the times I've followed my heart, I've been happy. Even if I stuffed up. Even if it led me to ruin. I sang all the way there and afterwards I called the disaster a lesson in life. Head talk always got me to a different place. I might have been secure. I might have been sensible, but I was restless and forever thinking about what could have been...

So I'll stick to music and art... and Ms Naysayer can just stick her kazoo where the sun don't shine.

That'll get us both singing.

Schooling

I'm returning to studies.

That doesn't sound that bad, does it? But I'm wary, leery and feeling nervous when I think about it all. The essays, the paying attention, the writing notes, the studying for all those different subjects...

BUT

I'm only doing a limited ATAR. I'm smart. I've got life experience. I'm mature (oh, how that hurt to type) and I have wisdom.

I'm up to this.

Plus, my back's to the wall. Which is usually incentive enough for anyone.

On the positive side, I'm actually old enough now that I don't care about doing well; life's kind of beaten out the competitive thing in me. I just want to pass and that's as high as my goal post is currently set.

It's been YEARS since I last did the formal schooling thing.  28 of them to be precise. It'll be 29 by the time I roll up on my first day.

That's a bit daunting... But...

What's life without risk? What good comes of living by the things you think you can't do?

Not much good at all... and total stagnation.

So I signed up. I chose electives - English, Family and Community Studies, Visual Arts, Music and... more English.

Now I have a timetable just like the one I burnt back in 1983.

But maybe this time I'll not give it all up so easily.

things I'd rather not think about.

It's hard for me to think about my parents ever having sex. Seriously. I mean I know I'm here.. and I have a sister, so theoretically they must've had sex maybe twice.

But.. in my mind they kept their clothes on during the act. And their glasses too. In fact the whole procreation thing probably went much like those two pigeons I saw going at it on my back fence last Spring. A quick hello, a whole lot of fumbling awkwardness, some lost feathers and... three seconds later - a baby bird!

I mean, a baby me.

Please. Don't spoil it for me. That's exactly how it happened.

The most outlandish people can be the stimulus for love... A mediocre person can be the object of a love which is wild, extravagant and beautiful as the poison lilies of the swamp. A good man may be the stimulus for a love both violent and debased, or a jabbering madman may bring about in the soul of someone a tender and simple idyll. Therefore the value and quality of any love is determined solely by the lover himself.

It is for this reason that most of us would rather love than be loved. Almost everybody wants to be the lover. And the curt truth is that, in a deep secret way, the state of being loved is intolerable to many.

Carson McCullers
'The Ballad of the Sad Cafe.'

Word Energy

It's my  personal philosophy that words have a vibration - not only because they physically vibrate the air which they are spoken into, but because very single word has its own unique vibrational being and energetic substance. Each word spoken gathers intent and meaning with every utterance by every being, every single time it's used.

Next time you say you 'hate' something or someone, think of the resonance behind the word, the power it has gathered down through the centuries, the concentrated intent behind every single letter. Think how poisonous and powerful it is.

Words have life; they have an ability to influence far beyond mere consonants and vowels. Once they are formed and spoken, they vibrate; they reverberate and take on a life of their own. Once said, you can't take them back - like a stone thrown into a lake, each ripple echoes out and touches everything else. On its reverse journey back to you, that ripple in the verbal lake might become a huge wave of words that sweeps you away.

So choose your words carefully and use them wisely. They have the power to impact upon everything around you.

different strokes..

I always feel like cooking - especially baking. It's therapy for me. I love to see basic ingredients come together and turn into something entirely deliciously different. Eating and cooking gluten free has been a challenge for me and a huge learning curve - but I love it.

I made blueberry muffins a few days ago, and I tweaked my GF flour recipe and added some tapioca flour (it comes from the root of the cassava plant), it added a lightness and really helped the overall texture of the baked muffins. Proof positive? I baked my blueberry muffins and they were just about all gone that same afternoon!

When I first started out eating gluten free, most people had no idea what that term meant. I had to constantly explain what the word gluten meant and why I had to be free of it. Lately that's happening a lot less. Even being vegetarian and gluten free barely raises an eyebrow at most places - but I'd seriously like to see something other than a salad offered to me as a meal.. unless it's a roasted vegetable quinoa salad!

I think we've come a long way in accepting that people have, or choose to follow different diets, which I hope is a sign that people are becoming more open and tolerant. After all, how does it hurt anyone else if I don't eat wheat or animals? Why would anyone be affronted by that choice? If my partner chooses to eat beef, I don't feel personally insulted. Why should I? As long as she's an adult and she has a full understanding about her food and is knowledgeable about her dietary choices, then what she eats is up to her and is her own karma..

Now if I can just get people to see that same reasoning when it comes to legalising same-sex marriage, things would be perfect. I'd be a vegetarian-gluten-free-happily-married-same-sex attracted woman.

I think I'll try ordering that off the menu more often!