opening the floodgates*

Exit through the floodgates





Apologies to Banksy for the title - its obviously a reference to his 'exit through the gift shop' movie about the elusive graffitist. To make this paint, pastel and collaged image, which I had clearly in mind before I made it, I printed out a copy of a previous image on joy, and used it as the basis for this image, which shows how easily unpleasant reality can break through.  What this is also about is emotional responses to trauma - I heard several people breaking down as they told their flood stories to reporters on the radio this morning.

Fortunately the taboo on public crying seems to be eroding - Premier Anna Bligh broke down on tv the other day, whilst proclaiming that we would 'get back up again, because we are Queenslanders!' There is a tradition of Australian politicians crying on tv: Bob Hawke famously did so and then more recently Kevin Rudd also 'blubbered' (he couldn't help self-critiqueing at the same time) when he was shoved aside for Julia Gillard. No British stiff upper lip here!

I am feeling surprisingly upset myself, although not personally affected. Partly it is frustration at not being able to help - yet. I have registered to offer counselling but I suspect they are overwhelmed with volunteers, as with the clean up. And the clean up is the first priority. My husband is back on community recovery duty, this time in our local area, facilitating emergency payments, and he is hearing sad stories all day (they are doing 12 hour shifts).  He is finding it very tough. At least he has a role and is able to help people out.

The weekend was weird. I did lots of sewing projects. Like writing, sewing is a step by step task. I decided to try to finish things I started. I finished the laptop bag:

I am pretty pleased with how it turned out. Then I made this basket (another container, in these uncontained days) which is to keep items in whilst being charged (the hole is for the electrical cord).

I really like this one too. The ideas came from a recently acquired book called One metre wonders, as everything in it can be made with one metre of fabric or less. Now I just have to finish the jumper I started to knit 6 months ago (its about 35 degrees centigrade, so finishing the jumper is not a priority).

I am back at work properly tomorrow - I am not sure how often I will write in here, but I hope I can keep the momentum going. I set myself the goal of writing this in under an hour today (sprint training?), going ok so far. Its been great to get into a routine whilst on holiday. I am enjoying getting feedback and trying to accept my occasional anxiety about self-exposure.

I let some other routines go in the last week, due to my shock at the floods, such as regular gym classes, daily stretches for my ham strings, and I even missed a couple of daily meditations. My sleeping pattern is also dysfunctional again. I don't feel right when this happens. Yet it is so hard to hold onto these important (to me) behaviours when I am feeling upset or anxious. 

A couple of other things I wanted to share. I love this article by Oliver Burkeman , which includes references to the Happiness Project, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. He also alerted me to Sonja Lyubomirsky's website, which led to this song about Happiness. Very cool!

*I suspect there will be more flood puns too, a colleague earlier today was complaining about the flood of emails on his return to work.

Approx 55 minutes. More later.