Monday, February 28, 2011

Shove over

Sometimes I get so busy I feel like I am running a booking hotline. When are you available? Three weeks time? One month? This Friday? Oh, I can't do drinks, I have a dinner. You can bring the kids. How about 7.00pm? But, we'll have to have breakfast because I'm out for lunch and then we have a wedding.

My diary has become an intricate interplay of different colored Lego blocks all linked and overlapping.

I'll paint you a picture. Let's take today for instance. I have back to back appointments of the health and wellbeing variety in order to set myself on the right path to remain sane and physically in tact for the coming onslaught of another brutal work week. This past weekend, Saturday was swallowed by housework and errands that had accumulated beyond the brink of the United Nations standard for third world livability. I spent about two hours on the phone returning calls and then attended an engagement party. Sunday was the first day I had seen my husband in maybe a fortnight. We had breakfast, went to look at property (an urban necessity for those of us looking to enter the ball breaking Melbourne market anytime this millennium) and picked up a gift for our nephew whose birth is pending any day now (I wonder, can we make time for that?).

Don't get me wrong, it's lovely that we have lots of family, friends and colleagues who want to see us. If I was in primary school, this kind of popularity would be almost legendary. The reality is, that we have one day a week where our schedules cross over just enough to remind ourselves that we're married. "Hello", we say. So...you're that bugger who left the towel on the bathroom floor last Thursday? I remember you.

If your life is a hotel, you are forever manning to desk. People come to you and tell you what they need. They need rest. They need a meeting. They need you to listen. They need a drink. Stay as long as you like, you tell them, and they fall at your feet. Some people overstay their welcome. Others refuse to stay and just drop by to use your amenities.

One day you discover you have let too many rooms. The sauna and the restaurant are booked solid and even the pool is overcrowded. There is no room left for you. No one wants to check out because they are far too comfortable. You have been overly accommodating. There is no space, nowhere for you to rest or withdraw to.

A book I am reading about recovering your artist says that creative people make nice to sabotage themselves; "yes, take me, I don't need for much". You appear good to others but are not being authentic or true to yourself. The author calls this the virtue trap. When others won't leave us alone, we abandon ourselves, deferring our needs to meet theirs.

I pondered this and in the days after I read it, I walked past a nightclub sign that said if you love something give it ROOM to grow. It was literally, a sign.

So, shove over people, I need some room. I am clearing my diary but I will be very busy. I have an appointment with myself.

Today, I rock up at my own hotel, bags in hand. Room, please! I ask, but it is more like begging. Just for one. No, I don't care what it costs.

And hold my calls.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Any Other Day

Last night I dreamed that I was dying. It was literally, my very last day on Earth. The strange and unexpected thing was, it was just the same as any other day.

We've been watching Six Feet Under. Relentlessly. If you are not familiar, this is a brilliant and critically acclaimed TV series about the Fishers, a dysfunctional family who runs a funeral home in Los Angeles. We have been watching at least one episode before bed each night for a few weeks. Tonight, needless to say, we might give it a rest.

Anyhow, in my dream Peter Krause is there. Not as as my funeral director (although he does have his suit on) or an Emmy Award winner, but as my only companion. He walks in and out of rooms flashing his reassuring smile and making small talk. I am not sure where my real friends are.

I go through the day knowing that the end is nigh, but I don't do anything differently. I have to ask myself questions that involve multiple choices and no ideal answers. Which casket would I like? Well, I prefer not to have one at all. Do I want to be cremated or buried? I prefer to stay right here, thanks for asking.

In my dream, I stare at a blank page at a kitchen table, wanting to write down what to say at my service so that Peter can read it aloud. You know, who to thank for this life and what was important. But I can't bring myself to pick up the pen and if I do, it will be real. I look up at the clock on the wall. The hours are slipping by, sliding away. But there is still time.

All day I wait for it, knowing it will happen, like an appointment that I cannot cancel. And when the clock on the wall tells me it is five pm, I go an lie in what must be my room, on a single bed with a colorful, handmade quilt that I've never seen before. I stare at the ceiling, immobilised by my complete inability to change what's coming.

In the dream I did not have my health. I knew my family would come, once I was gone, somebody would call them. All I had were these decisions, these finite moments. These last wishes.

And then, the alarm went off and I sat straight up in bed with this slightly sick feeling. This, I thought, this is it.

It's time to wake up.