Alisa Krasnostein is World Fantasy Award winning editor and publisher at Twelfth Planet Press and part of the Galactic Suburbia Podcast Team. She was Executive Editor of the review website Aussie Specfic in Focus!.
Currently working on a PhD in Publishing, in her spare time she is a critic, reader, reviewer, runner, environmentalist, knitter, quilter and puppy lover. She is a fulltime Mum.
A big shoutout to Sim who knows me and how I think. It was her comments on a previous post about this stuff that really helped me move past my paralysis and guilt relating to my crafting/not crafting/stash/huge number of WIPs. She suggested I put away the charm quilt that was squelching my crafting mojo, be cool with the project lying on hold for a while, and then audit my entire WIPs.
So this took me a while, both due to limited time and also having to actually face both the mess and the unfinished objects. But as one of my tasks I have tackled in my 5 day break, I actually spent a good couple of hours on this. I both created order and more serenity with my craft WIPs and space and I also found the spare bedroom bed. (I then was encouraged to sort out all the clean washing in that room the following day and found the bedroom floor for bonus points. A couple more smaller tasks to go in that room and I can sign it off as Completed. It’s funny how once you break through the paralysis, you just keep eating away at the elephant. And it’s all so much less insurmountable).
I took photos of everything. All my knitting works in progress have been uploaded to my Ravelry page. And yeah, I can see how in that form it’s all a lot less scary and horrible and a lot more encouraging to work through. My name over at Ravelry is girliejones if you’re then and want to be friends.
There doesn’t seem to be an equally useful quilting equivalent so I opened a spreadsheet and loaded all my quilt projects before folding them neatly up and putting them away in my craft cupboard. I also put all related bits and pieces for each project in its own labelled box. This killed two birds – 1. everything is neat and grouped and easy to pick up and put down and 2. it put use to all the little boxes I can’t part with.
Here’s an overview of the quilt projects. You’ll be able to see the gradual reduction in mess on the bed underneath as the task progressed.
The only thing I have left is to sort my fabric scraps. I’ve been picking up a few scrap quilt books and it turns out, saving every last morsel of fabric is ok and perfectly normal and you can make really stunning quilts from them. And you don’t have to only have one scrap quilt for all your scraps. Thus my dreaded scrap quilt which was getting me down can be finished off with the blocks made, I can feel good about drawing a line under it and feel excited about looking into other possible quilts. But first I have to sort them. So – more boxes to be put to work as I sort these according to colour. Another ongoing project but easy to go into the room and do a few and then move on.
Now I just have to decide if I feel up to cataloguing the rest of my yarn stash into Ravelry …
But I feel *so* much better now! And everything is far less daunting and confronting and doable again. And I have a few finished pieces to show! I am interested to see if my catalogues will be used by me – it can be really easy to file that stuff away and then it’s out of sight so you don’t feel bad and then you never go looking for it so you can continue to not feel bad. But the interesting thing in all this decluttering has been to let go of the guilt of having to finish something – a book, a project, whatever – just because I bought it or started it. It’s very freeing to say, “actually, I don’t like this” or “I’m not enjoying this” or “it doesn’t work for me” or “it’s not what I thought it would be” and to then act by giving yourself permission to … gift or donate the book or unravel a started project. So much future time freed up for new and other things!
What you want is the dramatic – you want to flash from the before to the after photo with maybe a montage of yourself flipping back your fringe, wiping sweat off your brow, balancing a pencil on your thumb, laughing at a joke and sipping a bottle of water. You want to go from A to B, from being past you to future you without having to sojourn for long in the present or the between times. To get the A+ in the exam without actually having to put in all that hard work studying.
Would that that was how it worked.
And what a revelation that it’s not. Not.
Or maybe that’s the real reason that it’s taken me this long. I’m starting to wonder if maybe it’s that I’m inherently lazy. I know what you’re going to say to that, so let me stop you there and say, actually I *appear* productive because I *procrastinate*. A. Lot. You see publishing company. I see how that was supposed to be a masters degree, phd if I’d really dug deep, in environmental engineeering. Sure, I prefer the publishing company but is that really the point?
My transformation has been going on a lot longer than the 12 weeks that I’ve been doing the 12 week body transformation. It was part of the reason I signed up at all. But I think this program kicked me into top gear on addressing my physical transformation (still in progress) as well as teaching me how to think differently which has accelerated a lot of the mental one (also still in progress).
I’ve learned a lot in the last 3 months that I’ve been able to apply to other things I’m still grappling with. Number 1 is – no more excuses. It turns out for me, that excuses are my number 1 reason for not doing things and when you check yourself and become aware that something is an *excuse* and not a *reason*, it’s much harder to let that play out. When you start removing your ability to accept excuses from yourself in one area of life (like, I can’t exercise today because it is raining), you start to stop accepting them elsewhere.
Blocks. I’m learned to look through them, around them and vaporise them. So the above, I can’t exercise because it’s raining, becomes – well I know I don’t like to exercise in the rain, so here is a DVD I can do inside at home. Damn! Excuse identified, solution provided. Annoying! But then you start to look elsewhere at why you aren’t doing things – so in part I think it’s cause I’m lazy. (I should say, obviously I know I work hard and for long hours and that I want to read a book or knit for fun and I am *entitled* to do this, but I also have things I want to achieve, and if I want that, if I really want that, then I have to work harder. It would be simpler to just not want it, then this wouldn’t be an issue.) But ok. The other thing is, I get blockages when it’s something I don’t want to do or say – like, I struggle with keeping my inbox in shape because a lot of my emails will have to be telling people no for something or that I don’t want to do what they want me to, or asking for more postage or sending rejections etc. And I don’t want to do that, I don’t like how it makes me feel. But .. those are just excuses! And so it goes … ain’t nothing but to go forward, say no as best and kindly as I can, and move on.
I discovered that a plan, a realistic plan, works. I’m worried that was such a surprise to me. I make plans all the time and I achieve things. But a couple of weeks ago, I reached the goal weightloss I had set myself for these 12 weeks and we were looking at the goals I was setting for the next 12 weeks. And I looked at C with real incredulity as I said, “but … it really *works*, I mean, you say you want to lose X kg, you execute the plan, and… and … then you get the goal at the end?” and he was really puzzled by that. (I spose his day job revolves around such thinking.) But I’m not sure I’ve ever really done that before – set a plan, break it down into tiny steps of how you’re going to do it, and then follow it to the letter and then get where you wanted to go. And a lot of it has to do with the fact that I did set myself a realistic goal. And I know that. But it also makes me wonder if all I need is a more detailed plan for my life
But this has also reinforced something that I did know – it’s all about consistency. It’s about following the plan, keeping your eye on the prize in the distance and not letting the ebb and flow of individual days get in the way. It’s about chipping away at it every single day no matter what. But this is actually quite huge. I’ve discovered as long as I lose about 200g a day, I’m going to reach my weightloss goals. I don’t always lose 200g a day, oddly thurs through sat/sun I’m pretty light and then I’m not from then to weigh in on a weds. I know this now about my body and I don’t freak out if I bob around the goal of the week. Eye on the prize.
But consistency is unbelievably important for any large or long term goal. I always knew this about publishing. I work on TPP every single day. Every day I do something to move something along. My rule of thumb has always been to edit/proof something every day. If I do that, the book gets done by deadline. But now I include that – do something every day – to a bunch of others aspects about running the press. As long as you keep things ticking over, it will all get done. And make sure you do it with consistency (always give good customer service, always be prompt, be professional etc).
I’m starting to see how this applies to other things. Like big, seemingly insurmountable things – like the big house declutter and big craft projects. I’m learning to see things like these as dynamic, ongoing projects. That if I chip away at them every day, they will eventually get done. And I need to find the equivalent of the 200 g daily milestone rather than looking at the whole thing and getting upset I didn’t build Rome in a day. I often watch the Hoarders Buried Alive show to reassure myself I’m not like that, and to kick myself into not being that. It’s the best way to get me to look at the last dregs of my house move stuff still to sort out. So much emotion wrapped up in this last declutter. But I’ve been starting to see progress finally and it’s from just continuing to chip away at things and also at finding ways to go around roadblocks. For example, I finally started addressing the book collection issue last week. If I have less books to shelve, then that will help in deciding how to shelve them. I started culling. And I started donating what I didn’t think I could sell and I started eBaying what I thought I could. I removed three shopping bags of books from my house last week and have sold 10 books so far online (I’ve made $7). I keep in mind the hoarders who successfully overcome their being buried alive – it’s a long process, it’s not won in a day – if they got their houses bulldozed away in one day, that would deal with the mess but not the issues that got them there. There is something really vital about actually working through the problem. By being in control – by setting a plan and carrying it out – by talking yourself through the excuses, the panic ,the roadbloacks and the emotions, you can not only achieve the goal but be freed when you finally reach/overcome it.
I also learned something so important and so freaking obvious it’s not funny that this is a revelation. You can’t undo hardwork. If I go off the nutrition plan and have something “bad for me” – I haven’t ruined my diet, I have eaten one thing with a bunch of calories. That *could* mean that I go on to exceed my calorie intake for the day, but it might not. One thing is for sure, eating more “bad things” is only going to *add* to the exceedance. It’s not like you restart the next day at a nil balance. And it’s not like you have a tick or a cross for your day performance and if you do 1 bad thing you go from a tick to a cross. And in fact, if you eat one thing that was off plan, most likely, you can wiggle around and accommodate it. You know, if the rest of the time you are consistently on the plan. One chocolate bar does not make you fat. I have no idea, now, how the logical course of action in my head to having one “treat” was to say “oh well, ruined it now, may as well tuck in and eat whatever the hell now, there’s no point.” Which of course means that now, having one treat is no longer associated with a feeling of “badness” or being naughty. It’s a choice. And it’s amazing how often, when given the choice, I don’t want what’s on offer.
It’s the getting used to most of the time saying no to things I normally said yes to so that I can say yes sometimes and it be ok. And the only way I don’t mind doing that is when I look at how many times I said yes to things I either didn’t care one way or the other about or didn’t even necessarily like. I said yes because it was there or because it was offered to me. Not good reasons to say yes about anything. And guess what? When you get used to say no in one aspect of your life … it gets easier to say it in others …
I watched me yet more reality TV this weekend. Last weekend I was avoiding things, or relaxing, whichev. This weekend I was sick. The kind of sick where I’m too sick to even think about work let alone feel bad for not doing any. We ended up spending 3 hours in Emergency on a Saturday night to find out that they don’t know what was going on. C says I take him on the best dates and apparently the TV had on Marley and Me which was the movie we saw on the day we met. I was mostly outside, not watching it, due to the OCD panic attack and the not enjoying the whole ED vibe.
Anyway, I spent a lot of the weekend watching stuff I’d recorded on Foxtel for just this kind of day – Tori Spelling’s latest reality show, The Real Housewives of Atlanta, Tabitha Takes Over and Bethenny Ever After. And it only just occurred to me tonight that whilst Hollywood is still struggling to find roles for older women and for powerful women in lead roles, reality TV has no issue with it. And not only that, but in these shows we find complex women from a diverse array of backgrounds and living real lives – trying to balance being good mothers and partners with still following their personal dreams and all the guilt and difficulties that go with that. Well except for Tabitha, that’s not what her show is about. But I realised that when I’m looking around to see other women doing what I am working towards, I find a lot of awesome women in shows like this.
Take Tabitha for example – an Aussie in America, she’s strong and confident and knows a lot about business. She comes into struggling hair salons (though in her new series, I just saw her take over a bar), sizes up why it’s losing money, deals with staff issues, makes over the place and gives advice to the owner about what they’re screwing up. She does present herself as the Bitch, in her own words, and she owns that. But she knows a heck of a lot about running a business, both on the floor and behind the scenes, and I’ve learned a lot that can be applied to any other kind of business too. I even discovered my Dad watches that show (he used to run MBA programs) and he says that he learns a lot from her. And she’s gay – that’s actually not relevant, though she’s openly so on the show and often interacts with the gay community, but this speaks to the diversity of women role models on offer.
The Real Housewives of Atlanta is an interesting one. In this version of the franchise, only one of the “wives” (right now only 2 of the women are actually married) is white. So you have almost a whole cast of black women and it’s not often that that happens and what it does is it allows black women to play all the roles – in reality TV shows they edit the season so that there is an overarching narrative and usually different people end up being the good and the bad guys over a season. Sometimes one person acts as the agitator and next season they might be the peacemaker or everybody’s friend. I think there must be something in those contracts that demand drama of the women cat fighting variety and also some of those women don’t appear to be actual friends so they must have to have a set number of social events that all of them must attend etc. So you get the big fight somewhere in the season and then lots of episodes of groups of women gossiping and plotting and whatnot. But your sympathy towards characters seems to change over the course of the series. Aside from all that stuff – which I don’t really enjoy because they always seem to be such petty things that they’re fighting over and people never seem to have the whole conversation that you’d need to actually resolve the original conflict – I’m really interested in the women. They are socially powerful, some of them come from the socialites scene. Most of them are very wealthy – like I can’t comprehend the wealth of these wealthy (collections of $15k handbags and shoes) – and I’m fascinated how they came to it. Some married into it. Some seem to move from wealthy man to wealthy man and accumulate it and that’s not very interesting. Though some of those women then take the money and start businesses and so on, and that, I think can be empowering. If it’s sustainable. But some of those women really did make the money themselves – one is a successful song writer and music producer (though the only work I’ve heard of was the album she wrote for TLC). And another was a model. I enjoy watching their struggles to juggle parenting and life and work. And the choices they make about all of those and how they feel about them. Cause there’s no right answer in that stuff and mostly, I think, you/women end up feeling bad.
I have to confess that, though it took me a while to actually watch it, I’ve discovered that I really admire Tori Spelling after watching her ridiculous reality TV shows. She has a very bad rap, every one assumes she is rich cause of her father and that she is stupid because Donna was in 90210. But actually, her father left her almost none of his fortune and she got paid very poorly for her work for him, and got almost nothing in the syndication of that show. In watching her on her reality shows I’ve discovered she is smart and really really funny (I think you need to be smart to be funny) and she’s very ambitious. She works hard and she mucks in and raises her kids herself, well she has a nanny too because she still actually works full time. She is a very caring, compassionate and down to earth person, very aware of her identity in the public eye but also really solid and real. And she is constantly working on business deals and so on. I am enjoying watching and learning from her, both in how to deal with your real self versus your perceived self, and how to not let it get to you, and also in balancing work/life.
And Bethenny. I think I love her the most and was so hanging out for the next season of her show, which I’ve just discovered is now airing. She was originally on The Real Housewives of New York but it soon became clear she needed her own show. She was single, mostly, on the Housewives and then she met Jason and got a show for her wedding and then life after her wedding. She’s a chef who worked for celebrities, making them organic, nutritional, calorie controlled food and then she developed her own line of sugarfree and all the other free (gluten, dairy etc) baked goods. And then she invented the Skinny Margarita which became a whole brand and then she sold it to Jim Beam for a LOT of money. In the meantime, she was still doing speaking events and writing books on the back of her success of both the cooking and the Housewives stuff. But what’s to love about her is she is unbelievably hilarious, she will not miss an opportunity to make the joke, even if doing it will cost her (you know, making light of a bad situation etc) and she is smart, ambitious and successful. She had a baby straight after her wedding and so taking care of her baby has been thrown into the mix. And she just turned 40. So she’s you know, kind of where I would like to be (I don’t feel I need to be THAT rich!) and she’s still struggling with what we all struggle with – how you can fit that much into this little time and still give everyone what they need and want, and still do what you need to do for you.
There should be more women like any and all of these women written into the fictional TV and movies that are made. These women exist. Women exist across a whole spectrum other than just virgin and crone / girlfriend and mother. But until then, I think I’m going to feel less guilty about watching my reality TV.
We launched 2012, the very first anthology I ever edited (I coedited this with my good friend Ben Payne) at Swancon in 2008. It was the first book title under the Twelfth Planet Press banner. It seemed fitting to give away a bunch of copies of this in the Swancon con bags this year. It also feels like that book was an eternity ago. I was in such a different place at that time – I was freshly out of my long term relationship and still a bit delicate. But I loved working on that book so much that I knew this publishing thing was for me and that I wanted to give it a very real go. Funnily enough, C picked up a copy of that book at that Swancon though he swears he didn’t go to the launch – we had it in the underground car park of the hotel and it went really well, I met Rob Shearman there and made a firm friend for life.
I’d tried a few things before this book – started the ASif! review website back in 2004. We stopped counting when we hit 1000 reviews on the original site and we’ve since published 378 reviews on the new one. It’s funny to think back to when this was the only project I had on. It used to take up all my time what with the books coming in, contacting and requesting review copies, which I had to do a lot in the beginning, and then getting the books to reviewers and editing and publishing the reviews. Every review has been edited by me. And now it just happens. Sometimes I get a bit behind in editing and publishing the reviews and I’ve had others come on board to help me with administration in the back end of it – G for a couple of years and now Tehani. I’m proud of the site. We try to review as much Australian specfic as we can and we review a lot of female authors. I’ve not done the stats but at a guess, it feels like we review more women than men.
Before 2012, I had also tried a few online projects. I kinda laugh now by how many people told me at the time that they liked the concept of New Ceres but they would prefer it in print form cause they didn’t like to read on the computer screen. How times have changed! I’m proud though that I tried something that hadn’t really been done much before, certainly there weren’t many online Aussie specfic publications back then. And we tried a few different things like paying pro rates and using a subscription model and interactive content. It wasn’t a successful idea but I don’t really have a problem with that. I would rather try something new, not ever done before, and fail than not try it at all. I’d rather fail from action than not succeed because I didn’t take the risk to try it out.
I much prefer to push the boundaries and do something new. I’m far more interested in looking for unoccupied niches. Doing different things enables diversity and the opportunity for writers and artists to experiment. It really excites me when someone pitches something to me that is just out there and original and fresh (and good!).
I’ve spent the last 5 years really learning a lot about small press publishing. I could tell you with every project I’ve done the mistake I made It’s given me a great checklist going forward of what to look out for. And as I sit here with a bunch of exciting plans for the coming 2 to 3 years, I suspect I have a whole lot more learning curve to go. But that excites me! It’s challenging and invigorating to try to do something noone else has ever done before. I love the problem solving that’s required – researching what’s been tried, what worked and what didn’t and why it didn’t and then looking at how I can try to move around the obstacle in another way.
It’s so strange to sit and look at the 16 books I’ve published so far – 16 already?! And I have 3 more almost off to the printer’s. Maybe I’ll finish the year off with my 20th book?! Who knows! But I love it. I love every part of publishing. And I feel so honoured to have had the opportunity to work with the amazing writers we’ve published so far. For me, the synergy of working with a writer or writers and just letting the creative sparks fly is why I’m in it. It’s the rush for me. I love it. And I love it when the book pulls together – when you say yes, these words in this order, they work. And then Amanda will send me a cover that just nails the book’s tone and feel. I get goosebumps. Every book she creates, I love better than the last. And for me, that’s the goal – to make every book better than the last one. If I do that, then I’m doing ok. And then I love letting this precious thing that we’ve created out into the world to see what readers and critics think of it. We’re so lucky to have the support base we have, that grows every year, readers who buy our books and get what it is we are doing. I love our customers too – I love processing orders, maybe communicating with our readers or a bookstore and packaging up the books and sending them out.
I love publishing. And if I don’t succeed, in the end, it’s hard to look back on what we’ve done so far and think it didn’t mean anything. I don’t think I could ever say it hasn’t been worth it. I’m blown that I won the World Fantasy last year. I mean, I really feel like I’m just getting started – like I just made it to the first rung of the ladder. And, for what I want to achieve, in the long term plan (yes there is one but I don’t write it down because it scares people), that’s where I am – rung 1. But what a ride it’s been to get there!
I can’t wait to see what happens in the next 5 years. We’ll be talking a bit more later this year about some of the projects we’re working on! But it feels good to look back at what Twelfth Planet Press has done, how it has grown in titles and staff. Our little seed of a dream that keeps growing and growing.
I’ve loved reading all your comments on how you shelve your books, whether you have reading queues and what books you keep and why. You’ve given me lots to think about. I also loved Tansy’s post which it sparked – Book Karma and the To Be Read Shelf. She covers lots of things that I was wanting to get to, after my first confession. I like the idea of slowing down on book accumulation to give myself a chance to catch up. But alas, 1. I read really slowly – we’re talking 12 novels a year if I try hard these days and 2. I still want to believe I can keep up with the shiny zeitgeist. Do you see how 1. and 2. conflict? (It’s not that I don’t know.)
The other problem is that I really want to get to the whole Hugo list before I vote. That’s going to take me all the time between now and the deadline. It will also mean I will behind on 2012 reading for the 2013 ballot.
But that means I’m probably not going to actually get to my To Be Read shelf til well into the latter part of the year even if I miraculously picked up reading speed.
Which means I am pondering more the idea of getting read of the queue completely. I’m seriously considering just merging all my bookcases and shelving everything by genre/category and then you know … just whatever. If I really want to read a book, it’s not that hard to walk two rooms down to the bookcase and getting it out. And if out of sight means out of mind and I never read it, did I really want to?
This year I’m experimenting, well it’s gone beyond trials into action and changing in thought process, with freeing myself of self imposed guilt, negativity and general bad feelings. There’s enough crap *out there* to fend off without self sabotaging from in here. And so it turns out, the world doesn’t end if you cull stuff/people/ books/emails/clothes/blogs you don’t like or actually want. It’s ok, liberating even, to start to identify what I don’t like, outside of what I might think you’re *supposed* to like. It’s letting me carve out a sense of myself and I’m really starting to like it. Firstly, it reduces down what I consume to things I’m excited about or interested in or make me happy. That makes a vast amount of difference to my mood. Remove the things that bore, disinterest, irritate. Pretty nice. Secondly, it’s giving me space to figure out who I am in a way that I’m not sure I’ve ever really done before. For example, I’ve discovered I have a completely different taste in clothing than I thought. More on that another day.
Relinquishing where I can self imposed anguish seems like a good thing to do. Which brings me back to my book guilt and my reading guilt. I have a reading block at the moment (I just can’t seem to focus on anything and am not finishing anything I start. I don’t really enjoy reading at the moment.) and it might not get fixed real soon. And even if it does, I am not going to be working my way through my To Be Read queue at any pace. I’m not joking about its expanse. So … what use does the burgeoning bookcase leering at me with books not read do me? On the other hand, I’m not sure I could just let go of the commitment to read these books. If I assimilate them in, there’s no going back. Well, worse, if I go back later to pull out all the unread books, more will be pulled out than got assimilated in. Which is also the problem – it’s completely random what is in the To Be Read bookcase and what is not.
The other day something I had been avoiding for a while now smacked me in the face. Well actually, it knocked one of my Ditmars off a shelf and broke it (it’s one that was probably glued together in the first place so can be easily fixed, I hope). I’ve been in denial about it but the truth is – I have never actually unpacked my books and put them away in this house. Terri came to borrow a couple of books that I *know* I own but when I went looking for them, I couldn’t find them. Normally I am really pedantic about my books. They are the first possessions that I pack and move when I move house and I always always have a very specific way to shelve them.
Alas, I moved in with C in June last year and all I did was *unpack* my books. And locate them kind of in the study. I had lost bookcases in all my various house moves and all the bookcases here were full. So there was nowhere to unpack them into it. I did go and buy myself four bookcases from Ikea. Two are in the study and are filled hapazardly with my books. One got pilfered for C’s games in his man cave. And the fourth is in our bedroom and is filled with my To Be Read books. But there is no order or reason to any of my bookcases at the moment and worse, they nowhere near fit all of my book collection, some of which are stacked in front on the shelves (leading to Ditmar fatalities) or piled under my desk and just around.
I was really upset that I couldn’t lend Terri the books she was looking for. I did lend her some books she didn’t *know* she was looking for and I think that worked out ok. But I am really really unhappy that I don’t know which books are where and have just abandoned this part of settling in. I think maybe, I can’t really be properly settled in if my books aren’t.
On the weekend, I finally started to confront this issue. I started to sort my books into some grouping order – everything was just everywhere. As I started to sort them, I started to realise I could actually cull some books. This could help with the storage issue. And something else too. As I’ve continued to declutter, both in my physical and my electronic world, I’ve found a great sense of freedom and removal of weight from letting go or letting myself off the hook or out of the guilt of wanting to want to read or do or like certain things. I think this might also be part of settling into your late (eek!) thirties. I’m caring less about doing things to fit in. And I know we as a community pride ourselves on not doing things to fit in but even in this community, there is still pressure to read (and like) certain books or blogs or whatever. And I’ve started to notice that I force myself to try to like some things and then I ignore or don’t allow myself to just not. And lately, I’m kinda starting to let that go. Who cares if I don’t like something? Life is pretty short, too damn short, to spend it reading books you don’t like or doing something you don’t care for just because everyone else is. And as I start to let go, I’m actually finding I’m discovering ore of me in the process. But that’s something for another blog post.
So I realised that I didn’t need to keep books, to let them take up shelf space, just so I can impress someone else. If I don’t own a book any more, does that mean I didn’t read it? How would you know? And if I do own a book, does that mean I *have* read it? How would you know? So I started being ok with removing books from the collection. And some of that is about letting go of possessions I have dragged with me for the last 15 years and somehow contribute to defining me for that reason alone. I’m not done. I’m not nearly done. But I’m ok with having started.
I am still going to need more bookcases. But I have to first figure out where they would go.
But I’m actually posting about this to ask a question. I have more than one To Be Read area. My bookcase in my bedroom is my recent (last 2 to 3 years) accumulation of books to be read. I have another little bookcase (15 cm wide and only three shelves) in the study which is an overflow To Be Read bookcase, probably of books with a similar book stashing timeframe, possibly a bit longer. Kind of books I’m somewhat less wanting to read. This case can probably be properly sorted and perhaps weeded. But in my main book collection, I noticed I have a lot of books that I haven’t read but still want to own and at some point, not in the immediate future, intend to read. Some are classics and I never really feel bad about buying those and then popping them in the main collection. But not all are. And for some reason, I’m ok with them being there and not in the To Be Read and feel confident that when I feel like reading those specific titles, I will go looking for them. BUT … why don’t I feel that way about the main To Be Read books? And further, those books take up an entire bookcase. At some point, I intend to read them and then shelve them in the main collection. So … that means that I need another whole bookcase just for the To Be Read alone, assuming I continue to accumulate at a constant rate.
Do you keep your To Be Read books separately? How do you tell the difference between books you really intend to read and books you feel you should just own?
I have been remiss by not showing this to you sooner. Here is the gorgeous cover by Amanda Rainey for Kaaron Warren’s Twelve Planets collection, Through Splintered Walls.
Kaaron’s collection is Book 6 in the series. It’s the half way point. How are we already here? And Amanda has done an absolutely outstanding job capturing the mood and the theme of this collection. This is Kaaron Warren at her best. From the back cover:
Country road, city street, mountain, creek.
These are stories inspired by the beauty, the danger, the cruelty, emptiness, loneliness and perfection of the Australian landscape.
There is a fabulous introduction by Gemma Files who says,
Every Warren story is a trip with no map… If you are bent on opening this book, therefore, remember: Keep your eyes open, accept all of what it has to offer without qualm, and beware the only thing I can promise you is that you will be taken where you may not want to go. For Kaaron Warren, while many things, is very much not your Mum; she owes you nothing except the words on the page, this open door into four very different someplaces else through which she will escort you, then take her leave, without a single glance back. And it will be entirely contingent on you to get yourself back out.
Through Splintered Walls will be launched at Continuum in early June and I promise to reveal more details about what we’re planning for Natcon soon!
I spent the time from 8.30 am til 10 am today panicking because there was only 3 weeks between now and June 8th aka Natcon. And I have books still to complete and send to the printer’s for this con. I feel proud that at least at some point in the panic, and oh there was heart stopping, then restarting, sheer panic, I figured out that I had again (yes not the first time) completely blanked on the month of May. I have no idea what that is about but I seem to completely FORGET a WHOLE MONTH of the year. Poor Amanda and Tehani got crazy lady emails. Because yes, even when faced with the impossible (there is no way those books could have been at Natcon if there really were only 3 weeks left), I still formulated a plan that I got stuck into executing. Never say die, I guess.
So you see, I gained FOUR WEEKS this morning at 10am. And this is how one can create time. Though personally? I do not care for it.
I can’t believe I forgot May. Twice.
Anyway. I have about 3 blog posts drafted here to finish and I think they all start out with some words on a bit of a funk that I’ve been in. I haven’t been able to get myself to blog even though I have several, probably a week’s worth, of posts sketched out. I just hadn’t been able to get myself going. On anything. You can always tell because my craft output cranks up. This weekend I fell into a hole and watched an entire season (Season 3) of Real Housewives of New Jersey and worked on a jumper I’m knitting. I didn’t even watch the previous 2 seasons of that show. I found the whole season recorded on my Foxtel from like last October. I inhaled it like it was oxygen. OMG I loved it. And I got a lot of knitting done. But not much else. And I had no idea how I was going to winch myself out of this funk.
Apparently FORGETTING MAY works! Got my heart pumping and my brain racing and my focus on. And I got THINGS DONE today, yo! So, ah, yeah, that worked.
Anyway. Someone kindly nominated this blog for The Best Australian Blogs Competition 2012. I’m hoping to get those posts I’ve got sketched up onto the blog through this week to regain my blogging chops. But if you like my blog (Champagne and Socks), I’d appreciate your vote! You can also vote for more than one blog so totally consider giving some love to Tansy (Stitching Words, One Thread at a Time), Sean (Adventures of a Blogonaut) and the Australian Women’s Writing Challenge blogs as well! You don’t have to be an Aussie to vote.
You can check out the new Galactic Suburbia episode on our website or at iTunes. You’ll notice we were really subtle about the Hugo nomination, because we didn’t want to be tacky.
In which this Hugo nominated podcast is Hugo nominated and discusses the Hugo nominations while being Hugo nominated. Also, the internet is full of things. Some of those things discuss gender, feminism and equality, some have wide ranging implications for the future of SF awards, and some of them are nominated for Hugos.
But in the real world, the character Katniss Everdeen faces an even greater challenge: Proving that pop culture will embrace a heroine capable of holding her own with the big boys.
It’s a battle fought on two fronts. First, The Hunger Games must bring in the kind of box office numbers that prove to Hollywood that a film led by a young female heroine who’s not cast as a sex symbol can bring in audiences. And second, for Katniss to truly triumph, she must embody the type of female heroine — smart, tough, compassionate — that has been sorely lacking in the popular culture landscape for so very long.
Tansy: So Silver Bright, Lisa Mantchev; Kat, Incorrigible, by Stephanie Burgis; Cold Magic, Kate Elliott
Alisa: The Hunger Games (movie and books), The Readers (podcast)
Please send feedback to us at galacticsuburbia@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter at @galacticsuburbs,, check out Galactic Suburbia Podcast on Facebook and don’t forget to leave a review on iTunes if you love us!
Wednesday I finally managed to get to my post office box. It feels weird after it being the regular detour on the way home every day to only make it once a week or once a fortnight! I kinda hate not knowing what mail has arrived. On the other hand, whenever I go now, I get to stagger out with a huge pile of parcels and ephemera. In this batch, all but one of the boxes of books were not for ASif! and instead were the random book buying purchases I did for a week a while back in a blur of online shopping and then forgetting. I had to actually stop completely when I couldn’t remember which sites I’d visited and what I’d actually bought. Just as well I stopped because I totally didn’t remember shopping at Fishpond at all and the evidence says differently!
Just after I posted my first Creativity Dysfunction post, Amazon sent me a book recommendation that looked gorgeous –Sunday Morning Quilts. It got me thinking about quilts but then I deleted the link. Then I was auditioning some quilt related podcasts maybe two weeks ago now. One of them was American Patchwork and Quilting Radio (still not sure I like this one). The episode I listened to had the two authors of Sunday Morning Quilts on as guests. I was actually more interested in them talking about their blogs and the communities they’d built around them and how. And then they spoke about the book and I realized a) it was the book I’d seen and b) their thing is scrap quilting and in fact, playing with colour and scraps. I was INTRIGUED.
I went straight home and spent *quite some time* on the webs looking at options, their blogs and also some books. It had not occurred to me until that moment that scrap quilts – plural – was a thing. That I could in fact make several. Or that they are ongoing projects rather than one ongoing project and I could finish the one I’m making and then move on. That I need not feel the weight of the ever-increasing- with every other project – pile-of-scraps. That scraps could be a great thing, just like stash. I got excited. And then, for some reason, I did not buy that particular book but these.
I’m really excited by the uniformity that lots of small pieces of non uniform fabrics can convey. I’m ready to get started!! (except for that pesky in progress and queued queues of projects)
And so now I do not know why I didn’t get Sunday Morning Quilts. A look on Fishpond has it quite expensive, which could be the reason but it’s not as expensive on other sites. Hmmm …I also had a great peek around the book online last night. I think I’ll start sorting my scrap stash in the meantime, anyway.
I also got these knitting books. Guess why?
Yup – 1 point for Knitting and 2 points for LISTS!!
And the other is Elizabeth Zimmerman, who is Knitting. The book inside seems to be The Opinionated Knitter and she’s grumpy and fabulous.
I had a quick squizz through Knitter’s Life Lists last night. It’s a combination of lists of things you should do before you die (love!) and also all kinds of interesting factoids and resources to go chase up. I’m definitely one for setting goals for lists of things I want to do, less on the execution of (you may have noticed …) Though I also quite like the idea of just setting aside a small portion at a time/year to look at.
I hunted through to see how part of the knitting zeitgeist I am – in their research for the book they asked lots of knitters what their goal patterns and stitches and techniques and so on were and that was used to compile some of them. I tend to not really *apply myself in knitting. I like the monotony of known patterns and stitches and I tend to knit to switch off. Except, actually that’s not really true at all. When I looked at, for example, all the yarns you should aim to try at some point in your life, I thought that wasn’t something I was really interested in, flicked down the list and thought, “ooh but bamboo! And seasilk and soy silk!” – materials I’ve been wanting to try for agggges. And then when I looked at sweaters and the holy grail and very long list of things to try there, I saw I’m already working on a couple of them! – the kimono jacket, which is my first ever sweater, and also I have the Baby Surprise Jacket which I bought all the yarn for when my niece was incubating and then didn’t make. I’ve since tracked down the pattern (it was hard to find as basically out of print) and now I have a new nephiece coming so I was intending to whip that up for them. So I’m already working on these and I realise do get adventurous at times. Only need a little bit every year and my lifetime of knitting will always be new and challenging.
And then I noticed that the list has Alice Starmore on it.
And look what also arrived in the same book haul, talk about yet more synchronicity.
I’ve not really ever had a desire to try fair isle other than … maybe if I’m stuck on 6 months holidays somewhere and really had no tv to watch or something… But I came across Adrienne Martini on Cast On a while ago (yes, it’s the same Adrienne Martini, the world is this small and I LOVE it) and she was talking about this book that she wrote which was based on her one year quest to complete an Alice Starmore sweater. That’s all I know about the book but I was instantly drawn to it and wished I’d known about it to follow along her journey of it. I can’t wait to read all about it. I just love these kinds of things (similar to the Julie and Julia blog etc). I wish I could be consistent for a year and commit to one thing that I could obsess about (oh! Nevermind! Stop judging!) Anyway, these sweaters are really hard to make and also, really hard to find the yarn, I think. I’ll tell you more when I’ve read the book which I’m dying to start right now.
And finally, I got Redwood and Wildfire from Aqueduct Press which is very funny because in the morning I’d gotten a refund on postage for a book I’d ordered the night before (Brit Mandeolo’s new book on Joanna Russ) and was swooning about how much I love Aqueduct Press books and then one of the packages had their sticker on it and I thought … huh? What ELSE have I bought! This is the Tiptree winner for this year and Tansy raved about it on Galactic Suburbia as well. I’m thinking if you liked The Freedom Maze by Delia Sherman, you might like this. But I’ll let you know.
So many books and craft and things and so fricking little time!
Well, there were very good arguments put forth, so I peeked! Very excited!!! Socktopus yarn! In River Styx colourway. So pretty! And nautical themes for the two choices of sock pattern – one of which is called turbulence. Am I over fluid dynamics enough to go for that option ?
All Australian fans are eligible to vote. Voting costs just $5 and goes towards the fundraising for NAFF. You can even vote to hold over the funds or for neither candidate – all votes however cast help to raise money for the coffers.
But, this post is to tell you not only that you should vote but that you should vote for Sean. Here’s Sean’s candidacy pitch:
Sean Broughton-Wright
A fan reviewer and commenter writing at Adventures of a Bookonaut, Sean promotes Australian speculative fiction authors, publishers and community news. In 2011 he ran an interview series on ‘Authors & Social Media’, featuring the likes of Marianne de Pierres and Margo Lanagan. He submits audio interviews to the fan produced Galactic Chat podcast; Claire Corbett being his most recent. His cunning plan at Continuum is to record audio interviews; file a daily report and tweet selected panels. He will gladly participate in panels or con activities that match his expertise.
Nominated by: Alisa Krasnostein (WA), Tansy Rayner Roberts (Tas) and Alexandra Pierce (Vic)
And as you can see, the members of Galactic Suburbia are his nominators. That’s because we think Sean is awesome. But let me introduce him to you a bit more to show you why he would be a great NAFF candidate.
Sean lives in South Australia. He is not the other Sean who lives in South Australia. He’s never been to a Natcon before – and so he doesn’t yet know what he is truly missing. Though he is starting to suspect – check out his Tweet stream over Swancon weekend. In fact, if you’re on Twitter you’ve probably chatted with him, had your signal boosted by him or gotten the breaking news from him. He’s a great supporter of Australian SF/F even though he’s fairly new to the scene. Sean blogs at http://bookonaut.blogspot.com/ where he promotes Australian SF/F fiction. If you write, produce, edit, publish or perform Aussie specfic, he’s more than likely tooted your horn for you.
Sean came on board our sister podcast Galactic Chat last year and has conducted some suburb interview for the podcast. They’re really worth listening to. His recent interviewees include Helen Lowe, Claire Corbett and Ian Irvine.
And maybe you’ve seen him around the traps fighting the Feminist 101 fight like the strong feminist ally that he is, so that some of us can take a wee break from the front.
I believe Sean is the kind of candidate that NAFF is intended for – an Australian fan who has never been to a Natcon before, wouldn’t otherwise be able to make it to this one and already participates so enthusiastically in fandom. Let’s bring him out to Melbourne, show him what a Continum con looks like and introduce him round!
Sean is running against WA fan Sarah and John Parker. They are strong and worthy candidates. No matter who you vote for, voting makes the fundraising easier. So get voting. Here’s all the information on how to vote:
Votes are being collected by: Sue Ann Barber (VIC) and the candidates. For more information please contact Sue Ann at activeim@hotmail.com. Voting opens Tuesday 3rd April 2012 and concludes on Sunday 22nd April 2012.
Please make all cheques payable to NAFF or National Australian Fan Fund. Email Sue Ann if you would like to pay via direct deposit or PayPal. Cash, in person, is welcome, but not through the mail! Postal address:
As I said, still not with the sitting still and doing one thing. I am *supposed* to be finishing my first lot of socks for the Cookie A sock club. Here is how much I have done of the first sock. Nearly the cuff. And I know that the second round has been posted to me so I am knitting against the clock here. I chose the pattern that is going to knit up like fortune cookies but that lace repeat is starting to get to me. Any second now, I get to turn the heel. And yet.
And yet, even with the deadline, I mostly knit on the kimono jacket.
And that has its own story. When I was cataloguing my WIPs, I pulled it out. I guess it was about half done and not touched for a good five years. I realised what was stopping me from finishing was that I had no idea where I was up to on the pattern. I know realise it would have been only a matter of measuring the sleeves and continuing on. However, actually when I measured it, I decided I was knitting it one size too small for me. So I unravelled the whole thing and started from scratch with one size up. But. Either the wool had sat for so long under a window in the sun and perished a little, or a moth or two had gotten to it. Or my knitting was not all that flash hot. Because the yarn is frayed to broken in some places. In more than a few places. So this has been a process of joining broken yarn and so on all along the way.
At first this was really hard and I realised that it was because I want this piece to be perfect. And I also want it to look exactly like the picture in the pattern. Except for two things. 1. Its not the same yarn as in the picture so it’s not going to look like that (why I didn’t buy that yarn when I purchased the it is a mystery for the ages because I no longer remember) and 2. This is the first sweater, and in fact non accessory sized adult garment, I’ve ever knit. Its probably not going to be perfect. And I’ve realised I need to give that up and get over myself and knit the damn jumper. It’s just a jumper. So I am nearly back knitted up to where I started when I unravelled it. And miraculously, most of that knitting happened this weekend. It was only just maybe 10 or 20 rows in when I took it to Swancon on Friday. And now I’m halfway through through the sleeves. I’m not sure if it’s going to be long enough but I’ll see.
The exciting bit about this project is that it involves a dropstitch when you get to the end. Yup, you purposely drop a bunch of stitches across it – and that, I reckon probably will make it might lighter and longer. So I’ve been waiting for that moment for about 5 years. I’m all about the delayed satisfaction.
So what with all this excitement and deadlines. Yeah I totally spent yesterday on something completely else. Remember my panic about moving over to knitting and not quilting? Well I’ve been listening to a bunch of podcasts on my drives all last week – both on knitting and on quilting – and following the lead on one of the quilting podcasts led me to a New York Beauty quiltalong. I only first came across the New York Beauty blocks last year but I fell in love with them and I fell hard. I love the art deco feel you can get with them and I love the sharp contrasts of points and circles and I love the amazing effects piecing them can bring. But I’m scared of them cause I’ve never done circular sewing before.
But I stared at this quiltalong all the rest of last week. And even though I’m not going to join and even though I’m *knitting to deadline*, I printed out one or two templates. And then today I went rifling through my stash. I kinda wanted to use the Paris cats fabric for it but I don’t know how much of that is still committed. And then I remembered/found this gorgeous set of fat quarters called something or other Noir. And I had bought it for liking it but with nothing in particular in mind. And it has Eiffel Tower fabric in it and …. and I started another project! Oops!
It feels terrible to be so utterly unfocussed right now. But it also feels fantastic to just follow creative whim. And this turned out so much better than I thought it would. It’s not a great semicircle (it has a bit of lineaity in it) – but first try! And I love how the points came out. I’m so suckered into the New York beauty! There are nine different blocks in this quiltalong.
Yesterday was a huuuuge day! We woke up to a twitter stream informing us that the Hugo ballot was out and Galactic Suburbia was on it! We’ve made it onto the first ever Fancast category ballot and it’s absolutely amazing, hard to take in and just totally floored me. Thank you to every one who nominated us!! We’re so glad you think what we’re doing is Hugo worthy. This category is absolutely awesome, if you don’t listen to the other podcasts, you’re missing out!
Best Fancast
The Coode Street Podcast, Jonathan Strahan & Gary K. Wolfe
Galactic Suburbia Podcast, Alisa Krasnostein, Alex Pierce, and Tansy Rayner Roberts (presenters) and Andrew Finch (producer)
SF Signal Podcast, John DeNardo and JP Frantz (presenters), Patrick Hester (producer)
SF Squeecast, Lynne M. Thomas, Seanan McGuire, Paul Cornell, Elizabeth Bear, and Catherynne M. Valente
StarShipSofa, Tony C. Smith
As you know, at Galactic Suburbia, we LOVE awards season and we’re major fans of the Hugos. To be a part of it is too too cool. I’d already decided that this year I’d follow Alex’s suit and work me way through the entire Hugo packet and I can hardly wait til the 2012 one is out!
If you want to play along and if you want to cast a Hugo vote! you can do so by buying a supporting membership here.
And if that wasn’t enough for one day, I was so pleased to hear that Nightsiders by Sue Isle won the Tin Duck for Best WA Long Fiction Best WA Professional Production. I’m so very proud of this book. I’m so very glad that others are enjoying it and getting as much out of what she has done in this collection as I did.
I’ve been sitting here all day with the intention of writing up a bunch of posts I want to make. There are a few on a bunch of topics, so many in fact I thought, well, I could queue up for the week so as not to deluge the blog. I have though in fact started only this one. Mostly because I couldn’t decide where to start. And that’s been pretty much most of the day and in fact my week. And it’s not even been too much to do, no idea where to start. I have a list, comprehensive lists, breaking things down into bite sized tasks. Any task to suit any mood. Alas my mood has been to flit with no desire to sink my teeth into anything or indeed to sit still long enough to sink at all.
Take today, I’ve half cleaned the kitchen, half started the laundry, cleaned a bit of my desk, folded some laundry, and sorted a bit of my in tray. But I’ve completed nothing, really. And instead I’ve been sort of consumed by my knitting and the internet. And I still don’t feel much like doing anything even though I have TONS to do. I just don’t seem in a settling into anything type of mood.
I made it into Swancon on Friday and Sunday – Friday was unexpected as we found ourselves with 6 hours to kill between Easter breakfast with C’s parents and Seder night with mine. And I wanted to pop in and see Marianne and drop her in some books. I settled into her interview panel with the beginning of my knitting (above) and thought I’d just stay for that. Zoe interviewed Marianne and I believe it was recorded so perhaps available for listening at some point in time. And it was a really great interview, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I mean, yeah, really lovely things were said about Glitter Rose, and Kendra asked a fantastic question about the book (always so freaking awesome when readers get what you were trying to and/or really think about the work – Marianne described Kendra as a “thoughtful reader” and I instantly decided that’s what I want to be when I grow up and also how lucky I am to have thoughtful readers of the work I publish) but it was just really energising to hear Marianne speak. It’s kinda rare now that I think about it to sit in a big room, for it to be really well packed and for just one woman to speak about her experiences as a writer. An she had so much of interest to say.
After that, I ended up kind of conning – I believe it’s called? I just sort of floated around, got into conversations with people and had not a care in the world. It was great. And C had headed off to the gaming room when we got there and I got a text asking if I was ok and if it was all good to stay and I was happy, he was happy and it was good. I had a brief chat and debrief with Marianne just before we had to head off to dinner and that was that.
Sunday we headed back in – I had two panels on and C played in the magic tournament thingie. I managed to persuade Jonathan to come and join me on my first panel with Helen and Satima on what to do once you’ve finished your manuscript. And then we headed off to lunch with Kathryn and Terri. And after mooching about, I had a second panel which I don’t think went very well and then I headed back to the dealers room where I managed to successfully win the fan art pictured with my knitting above! It’s by Susan Margaret who also painted the Glitter Rose glasses from last year. I think I might love her work I’m looking forward to drinking lots of cups of tea whilst knitting and reading in a winter with this cheery set. It was part of a beautiful installation which I would have bought more of but I had no more money on me.
And then I could dodge it no longer. Marianne sat me down and gave me the hard questions to “check I was still on the straight and narrow.” How lucky am I to have such awesome mentors? Something that’s a real struggle is finding publishing mentors in Australia – there’s lots of avenues for how to learn your craft as a writer or editor, all manner of courses and workshops and societies. But so much less, to almost nothing, on how to grow an independent press. I think it would be fair to say in the SF/F scene, most small presses stick around 5 to 10 years. And very few make the leap from small to medium. I’ve been lucky to be introduced to a bunch of people who have been willing to help by answering my questions and to offer guidance. But I’ve been luckier still to have good friends who throw ideas at me and let me bounce off my crazy. Marianne, though, is the one to whom I confess *everything* and who has been keeping me honest and on track so I don’t get too crazy. Or that I at least keep the crazy on the back burner for now. She knows a lot about the business and anyone who had the chance to hear her talk or to talk with her this weekend knows just what an honour that was. I for one am glad I had nothing hidden I had to confess to her face!! I would not have enjoyed that! And it was instead great to talk through with her my plan with the upcoming novels and everything that goes along with trying to make this a real thing.
I’m a big fan of Locus, of what they do and also of preserving history and historical artifacts. Here’s a really good chance to chuck a buck or two in the pot and make sure that a bunch of the genre scene doesn’t get lost or misplaced and that the ephemera Charles Brown spent his lifetime collecting can be accessed, used and enjoyed. You never know when you might want to research something.
If you’re just joining us, and want to try out Galactic Suburbia for the first time, here are the top episodes that we think represent the best of 2011.
I needed to post about my Nana before I could post anything else here, it didn’t feel right. I hope also it’s understandable that I will be a bit unreliable on things whilst I take a bit more time out of commitments and also that I may not make it to Swancon.
Also this week, in the midst of everything else, I gave notice at work and resigned on Tuesday. An old boss had come looking for me some time ago to work for her on something that would be the kind of job I would write for myself if I were to write one for me in public service. It also comes with a promotion, more money and less commute – in fact it’s ridiculously close to the train line. So that’s a 15 hour return of time to my week as I can read, slush, reply to email etc whilst commuting. It’s a pretty good opportunity.
The problem was, I didn’t look for it and I was enjoying where I was when she came and found me. I like my boss and my team. And I’m still learning how to do the job. And I knew how badly they needed extra hands for the work load and by leaving, I will be leaving more work to less people. For which I feel pretty awful about. So I had been dreading resigning, in fact I almost didn’t even consider the offer in the first place because of this. I am so lucky to have such good work friends – one of whom smacked me around for a bit for not even considering it. Especially as it has the opportunity to apply for permanency which I am yet to have ever been offered (the opportunity to apply for) in the 7 years working where I am. And I was the worst feminist ever, being so apologetic for taking a better offer, I apologised like 5 times as I left the room after resigning. Seems I’ve at least moved to a point where I will take what’s right or better for me but I don’t quite own or feel proud of doing so.
I’m sad too to be leaving my agency and moving on. But the job feels the right fit for me. I’m a little scared by how badly they are needing and wanting the skills I have. I think maybe the job is going to be really hard and I won’t have much supervision to guide some of what I will be doing (not overly different to where I was in my last job but I do know how that then feels). I raised some of the issues that I thought there would be in my taking the job and they have already offered some solutions and I’ve thought of a few ways to deal with things too. So … I guess … I’m actually doing this. I start April 30.
This was a pretty highly emotional week. My grandmother has been ailing for some time now and her health had taken a rapid decline in the last 6 months or so. My family had to make some difficult decisions about her living situation and so on but then last week, she really took gravely ill. On Tuesday I headed up to visit and sit with her after work and she was very distressed. It was very upsetting to sit and the only thing you could do was hold her hand and whisper comforting things to her which you hoped she could hear or sense as she was pretty out of it by then. I didn’t head up Wednesday. Thursday I waited til I was in Bunbury and had sat at my desk for an hour before texting my mum for an update who told me to head up straight away. I did so and that was one really long 2.5hour drive. Thanks to The Writer and the Critic for keeping me company and something to focus on. After that, we sat with Nana pretty much that whole day, she was much more peaceful. As I left at about 8/8.15pm, I kissed her and told her I loved her and I knew that would be the last time I saw her. We got the phonecall at 4am (though actually 6am cause I’d put the damn thing on silent) and then I headed back up to be with my family.
I’ve posted before how much I appreciate the Jewish death rituals. They are so clear about what to do and how to comfort mourners and they offer mourners themselves a very direct course towards and through grief. We bury our dead as soon as possible. Since Shabbat (the Sabbath) is on Friday night, funerals need to happen before 3pm on Fridays. So my family were organising the funeral by the time I arrived at my Nana’s house where everyone was gathered. We sat and drank tea and talked about what the eulogy should say. And we just sort of existed in that limbo stage of shock where the reality hasn’t really set in. I’m amazed by how much of the rest of the mundane world just melts away when you’re so focused on intense emotions and moments in life. The complete loss of the sense of time.
I’d headed up to my sister’s to drop off food as she’d made her place the gathering for Shabbat dinner. And we had taken over some lunch for everyone. You can’t think about eating at all and then you eat something and realise how starving you were. After everything was organised, I headed back to my sister’s to finish a grant application that was due Friday night and I’d intended to work on on Thursday night and Friday afternoon. That’s one interesting way to write a grant application – you couldn’t be more removed from the words emotionally even if you tried.
We headed to the funeral – it’s amazing how many people showed up without much warning. And that’s when the reality hit home – we were burying my Nana.
My uncle gave the eulogy and it was a very beautiful one. It’s so important to me that women have decent eulogies. So often, and especially with women my grandmother’s age, the eulogy consists of “she was born in blah blah, met her husband, got married, had x number of children and loved to cook and clean for them. It made her happy. And she will be missed”. And these give you no sense of the person she was or what life she lived outside of cleaner and housekeeper. It always makes me kinda mad.
But this wasn’t that kind of a eulogy. And I do think he gave a good sense of who Nana was and what was important to her – family, Jewish community, the wider community, philanthropy and so on. And that she was someone who gave good advice, never pulled punches but also was someone who thought it was better to not say anything at all, if it wasn’t nice. She lived to be 96 and as my uncle said, she had a long life, well lived. She travelled to far and exotic places. She saw the most amazing changes in her lifetime. She was someone who learned how to record her shows off the Foxtel – she wasn’t afraid to embrace new technology or new thoughts for new times. She never judged me for the choices I made in life or for who I was and she loved me unconditionally. I enjoyed hearing her stories and she had lots to tell. She showed me that nothing much had changed in 100 years – I wasn’t doing or thinking anything new at all
She will be greatly missed.
After the funeral, we headed back to my Nana’s where most of the family was milling about, drinking tea, eating eggs (I think it’s because it’s the symbol for life and rebirth) and talking. It’s very comforting to come from such a sad and confronting event to a house full of people. I think it eases you back into reality in a way that would be so much harder to do it you went home to an empty house. (At the funeral, it is considered a great deed (mitzvah) to help bury the person so every one lines up to shovel three shovels of sand in. It’s a very upsetting thing to do but it also forces you to accept what is happening and pushes you forward into grieving.) Now, you remember that you have life and family and that you will and can go on.
We sat with the mourners – my dad, uncle and aunt – for a bit before heading back to my sisters where I finally finished the grant and submitted it. Her sister in law and mother in law had kindly cooked most of dinner and were fussing around setting things up. My cousin’s fiance had flown over for the funeral and was napping. And there was this sense of family, love and comfort in the house. And then everyone (half of the family) came over for Shabbat dinner and the house was filled with people and we were just together as family. I find that very comforting. Though I was actually unwell and couldn’t eat.
After the day of the funeral, we hold evening prayers for the dead. And that is where we are at the moment in the phase of all this. Still very much in that post shock place and still very immersed in family.
Tomorrow, back to work and life goes on.
I’m going to disable comments to this post as whilst I appreciate words of condolence, I didn’t post this for those. Thank you for your thoughts at this time, I do appreciate them.
Photos taken by my cousin of photos in my Nana’s photo album.
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