space and time

in the infinity pool of life

if you could stop for long enough to look

and notice the waves lapping over the edge of the earth

if you had time to spend with each-other

and reconnect in some meaningful way

if you could make love at least three times a day

and drink red wine at 4 am whilst eating prawns in bed

if you could sleep in and fall into a saltwater pool

then wander down for kippers and coffee

I guess you'd call it a holiday

treat

a very interesting weekend so far

steins seafood

swimming in the infinity pool

and a treat between the legs of a woman in the pages of a magazine.

dont get me wrong

I love hundreds and thousands as much as the next bloke

but this never occurred to me.

why?

what is wrong with reality?

chocolate and food colouring aside

a woman's body needs no adornment.

except perhaps a fine pair of earrings.

and no they aren't bruises

just a crease in the

pages of a magazine

or in time.

chasing the sugar hit

the high

the dragon

or the girls.

on the run from reality

on the iphone

on the bus

in your head.

 as you were...

the constant gardener

I removed an old pot from a plant last week

and looked at the roots

winding in on themselves an a dense thick spiral

choking, strangling each-other

in a futile attempt to find new soil or new 

places to grow.

root bound.

and naturally I saw the plant as a metaphor

for life.

old ways

old views

old habits

and the psyche forever chasing its tail.

the views get more entrenched 

the ideas get more extreme 

the beliefs become more certain

and its all because of the frame of reference.

(which is no more real than anyone else's)

the answer of course

to any feelings of anger

boredom

frustration

resentment

unhappiness

is to do something new.

cut some of those strangling roots

and get a bigger pot.

where do you live?

coogee

a name taken..

from a local Aboriginal word koojah which means "smelly place"

well lets face it the kids are pretty slack at cleaning up after dinner

and we do eat a lot of seafood.

and since Ive been to japan

and hawaii and sydney

and every fucking place that sells

seaweed salad

Ive wondered just where is that 

green sweet crunchy 

salty delicacy

actually produced

because if you are tuned 

its everywhere,

the fish markets

sushi go rounds

and every japanese restaurant.

and sometimes if you are lucky

you can get it for

$3.50 a serve

although its often

fifty cents more

for the same 

quantity

and if i think about it

perhaps its fate

that I ended up here

in koojah

the smell of kelp washed up on the beach

drying

ahhhhh

home.

MDMA

I know what you are thinking

and although it seems certain

you are wrong.

In the old days MDMA

was that little pill  that people took

that brought with it a little trip

into a land of love.

now as I get older and wiser 

I realise the real meaning of the acronym

and its true that i use it everyday.

in fact the startling truth is we all do

From the moment we get up till the time we go to sleep

its not always fun and frankly like most recreational users

I wonder if its just a phenomenal waste of time?

and like all addicts the habit has crept up on me.

It starts with the screen

im sure the frequency is synced with our brain

and even when there's nothing on

we find it fascinating

and then there is all the information

in little files and icons

that needs to be copied, backed up

moved or deleted.

what if somebody broke in and stole the harddrive

decades of photos, writing and life lost

and what then...

memory alone?

if god (existed) had wanted to make us walk

he would have given us legs

and if he wanted us to remember

why have we created external cluttered brains?

I started the day

resyncing songs on the iphone

organising the desktop

and taking out the trash.

digitally speaking Ive done a lot 

but perhaps its all just a wank

digitally speaking

managing digital media allthefuckingtime.

MDMA

entropy

chaos

its fucking everywhere

in the house

in the kids room

in the computer

in the kitchen

in the wardrobe

turn your back and everything you do, think, download

adds up.

just sits there and taunts you to organise it

clean me up.

so you download another program that will do it for you

spending money, wasting time

in a futile struggle

to create some order.

the garden gets overgrown

theres stuff under the house you havent looked at for years

all the toys have bits missing

the itunes library is over two hard drives

and the hard drives are fucking breeding back there

I mean come on who really needs a

2T 1T 600meg 500meg and

a hard drive in the computer?

Its like the sahara

all that space and I've got to put out a search party

if i want to find a song.

there are 24 thousand photos

and 15 years of memories hidden in code and plastic

and in the end its no better than it was a hundred years ago.

my grandparents died and there were 4 photos that represented their life.

how many of the 24thousand do I look at ever?

and god forbid if the power goes out.

as Ferris Bueller said

life moves pretty fast

blink and you'll miss it.

if only he knew how we would try to record

the bits we miss

and suck the world of energy and life as we

retain all the stuff we never need to look at again.

when you order

you just create more chaos

and its hidden

out of site

piled under the rug

behing the wardrobe door 

and in the drawers 

of the desk

in the office

of my mind

chaos

a funny thing happened on the way...

occasionally an evening takes a turn that surprises you

friday night after dining at popolo

the boss and I thought 

what the hell!

its 8pm, lets do something crazy

so we wandered up to the verona

and saw whatever was on.

after paying $55 for two tickets and two beers

(it has been a long time since I attended hasn't it)

we slouched down and watched Monsieur Lazhar

inspirational, intelligent, emotional and superb

or so says the byline

but I dont really think that sums it up

its been years since I saw a foreign film

and being there in the dark

I realised a void was filling

in my fast paced monochromatic existence.

the first thing is the total immersion

the next a window into another world

where they dont speak your language

where the scenery looks different

and where the diet isn't 

australian or american 

humour, or even worse

drama.

a story without sex, violence

(ok sure there is one extreme plot event)

without aspirational character development

or expensive sets

perhaps my diet of

pixar films 

and blockbusters

is finally boring my palate

perhaps as I get older my taste 

is changing

for the better or perhaps

the worse

or just maybe it was 

a great film

and they only come round

once every couple of years.

WTF?

I cannot count the times

                                                           I have driven past this image

and wondered why a

shoe company

is selling perfume to 

women who look like men

without feet

when in reality 

they should be selling 

shoes to women who look like women

with feet

or perhaps I am just tragically

behind the times.

merry go round

busy busy busy

every day there is no time

or perhaps there's too much

now is the only reality

but how to access the now?

no expectations

no plans

no memory 

dont look, see

coptic cross or cryptic crossword

meaning is hidden or proscribed

either search for it or you can buy a package

just have faith, here take this pill

or just have a drink, 

and another, and another

and the veil of truth tantalisingly close 

with a glass

diss-appears into the bottle

a genie that sits there 

waiting to be let out again.

habit obscures experience

old replaces the new

or becomes it

unless..

the water is very cold

and you dunk yourself

in the ocean 

a sink for emotion

a sharp intake of breath

icy skin

clear eyes and 

finally clarity.

voted off the island

you never miss your water till your well runs dry

you better count your chickens

it was the straw that broke the camels back

it is the weakest link in the chain

everyday we utter these phrases

and although we are aware of the meanings

their import remains remote

buried under overuse and cliche

well today I realised the meaning of the weakest link

I had to ride to work

having been a good citizen

and leaving my car at the X

after having a few last night

I had miss-placed the garage clicker

and the only accessible bike

was my sons "old school"

BMX

now I thought

sure the pedals are short

and I'm gonna have to do more exercise

but I'll get to work on time right?

wrong!

a hundred meters from my house 

with 5km to go

my folly became apparent

bike too small, seat too low, progress to slow

I soldiered on

got to centennial park

where the chain came off.

10 times

closer inspection of the chain revealed

you guessed it

a separating link

and I had to stop

every 200m

to bash the chain against the closest metal object

and close the link.

(my kingdom for a set of pliers)

made it to work 

covered in grease

sweating profusely

with a bad headache from an

ill fitting cap.

a 25 minute ride

transformed into 45 minutes

and that was just the beginning

of a shitty day at work.

and all because of the weakest link

schrodinger's cat

lying in the early dawn

talking about dreams

yogagirl asked me what i knew about quantum physics

"not much" i replied

"the particle and wave duality"..

"oh that yeah sure"

matter is either one or the other or both

to determine which it is dictates the outcome

which got me thinking of definitions

and associations, boxes and identification

the recent riots and chest beating

the differences in religious ideology

and the driving underlying separateness

of identification

why if we are all made of matter

do we need to be different?

why if we are all the same

do we need to box ourselves 

and restrict our thought patterns and action

to a violent expression

of our miss-placed separateness?

and the deeper you think about it

we only believe what we learn or are told

what we experience or what resonates with us.

but what resonates with us may be different

to what resonates with others.

there is no right or wrong

only what we believe to be so

and then to distill it

what really matters?

and all this while swimming 

up and down the pool

beats counting to 20 

I suppose.

the flow

lying there in the early dawn after another dreamy night

i had a profound thought

its all about the flow.

thinking of life and how it moves.

thinking about situations and people and how they dont.

thinking about positive and negative

energy

emotion

thought.

thinking about a rock in a river

and how it disrupts the flow

and in doing so splits the water

energy

emotion

thought

and creates eddies and stasis in its wake.

think about someone you know who is stuck

rigid, inflexible, unhappy, 

addicted to the pain of the present

or whatever...

how very zen

if life is a river what are you fighting against?

which leads me in a roundabout way to being woken at 2 or 3 or 4

every night for the past 3 weeks

by a child, a dream, a noise or whatever?

somebody recently said that in august there was something big going on

in the solar system (man...)

that would be interrupting sleep patterns

and the flow

what is it?

beautiful fucking day!

yesterday morning 

after the madness of waking at 3am 

and drugging myself back to the land of nod

after my son waking me at 6.30 

and asking inanely if i wanted to jump on the trampoline

after a brief check of the faculties and 

finding mr temazepam was still in residence.

i thought if i was any more relaxed i'd be asleep

and then wondered why i wasn't.

the day was shaping fine

my fabulous wife came back from yoga looking energetic

my beautiful son and daughter woke looking like brady-bunch extras

and in a flurry of activity they were gone

to school. 

the house was quiet 

just the dog and I

the day was warm, like mid summer

the day was clear, like mid winter

and i thought delightful day for a swim.

so we went down to the ocean.

Coogee was a millpond, crystal clear and inviting.

hang on, i thought to myself

the only person swimming is in a steamer.

and there's only one of them.

i approached the water and dipped a toe in

the toe froze. and gave me pause for thought...

how cold could it really be?

i'll just have a quick dip

as my body entered the water 

before the freeze hit my brain 

i thought i'd better not swim out to far, or i'll drown.

how long does hypothermia take to set in?

my head was under the ice floe for three seconds

and i felt like a kid who's just eaten too much ice-cream

the swim lasted 20 seconds

and felt like an hour.

but when i emerged shivering into the warmth of the spring day

my body tingling with the stimulation

i walked back up the hill and felt alive

in a way that i hadn't before

mr temazepam had left the building

and i went to work.

beautiful fucking day!

at 4 am

and so 

for the fourth time this week 

i am awake before the sun...

well before the sun. 

only today i'm not working so i dont really care 

whether i go back to sleep or not

and with that thought in mind i can stare at the screen

listen to the water filter through the fish tank

in bed ten minutes ago

in between the time

half asleep, half awake

i became aware of many things

the cat snoring - as usual

my wife breathing - thank god

the dog dreaming of electric cats

and the morning birds

out there in the dark

calling to one another

a whippoorwill or minor

or kookaburra 

the silence reveals much

about the things

which are hidden in daily life

but are always there

at 4am

the sound of silence

according to wikipedia silence is the relative lack of audible sound.
so there you have it, at the outset i'm lying.

i can hear my wife softly breathing beside me as i type
the tapping of the keys competing for her breath

but the fine buzz in my ears the background to it all
and i wonder if i am ever in silence
or just fooling myself
again.

being here.. or there

PRESENCE

when you get away from it all

with no distractions and no worries

when you leave the cold for the warmth

the busy for the quiet

when you leave the iphone, ipad and computer

the television, the telephone, the radio

when all you can hear is the ocean 

and the sound of the shells crunching under your feet

you realise in a simple way 

you connect to the fundamental 

and in that moment you are present

and you have everything you need

that is the conundrum of modern life

everything out there is just a distraction

from reality which is occurring 

to all of us all the time and we dont even 

notice

so today im going to just be.

the curious tale of a cat and a passport

So today i woke at 3am

very excited.

we had packed our bags, gathered all the relevant documents and called the cab

we were flying to FIJI for a well deserved break.

I woke the family at 5.30 cab at 6 to the airport.

we were in high spirits at 6.45 when we rocked up to the virgin counter.

"there is a problem" the virgin behind the counter said

"your daughters passport doesn't have 6 months left" 

"so" i say?

"Fiji required passports to have 6 months left on your passport to enter"

YOU CAN'T FLY

my son started crying. he never cries.

my wife looked as if she had taken a short jab in the solar plexus.

i thought i was trapped in the twilight zone.

so ten minutes after we caught the cab in, we caught another out.

we rallied our energy over breakfast. What to do?

FIJI consulate? Passport office? travel agent?

we had an hour to find a chemist andmake our daughter sit still, 

download the passport forms and fill them in 

and get a JP to notarise everything.

by ten thirty we were done at the passport office. 

they told us two working days. 

"Thats tuesday, todays friday!!!"  the voice in my head screamed

we started to cry again...

"Buuuut for you" delivered with a wink...

come back at 4pm. 

christmas in august!

we walked across the road to the travel agent. 

"we weren't told about the 6 months" I said

he made some murmurings about it being on page 4 of the annex to the documents

 in the left hand side of the blah blah blah...

anyway we would probably just have to cop a change fee. 

 $70 a ticket perhaps.

the passport office called, 

there was a problem with the form we had to go back.

Fuck!

the travel agent wandered back in .

price to fly tomorrow $2500. 

WTF?

it was at that point i seriously felt like shouting and kicking something.

we regrouped at yum-cha.

 i did some research and got some prices.

went back in and he said they were all very sorry, had pulled some strings and 

the price was now $1000

predictably i was relieved

the bait and switch successful

we all shook hands

and we went home 

(although technically i had to go back to the passport office 2 hours later)

as we unlocked the front door we heard a desperate meowing

bones 

 our cat was trapped in the upstairs apartment

and nobody would have found her for 8 days.

so for the wrong date on a passport,

a day of being screwed around,

$1000 

and a little bit of luck

we saved the life of a family member.

priceless!

the philosopher

lying in the bath with my miles

he says

"wouldn't it be cool if we could ride in the desert on bikes, there would be nothing there except a stone path that leads into the future"

far out

  lets face it every path, road, journey, walk and moment we live

is a stepping stone into the future. 

and he gets it at 7.

rainy day madness

"shit night to go anywhere"

she said as the heater blew warmth into my feet.

Jazz on the stereo and the hot bath running.

Sounds competing with the wind and rain buffeting the windows on the deck.

No we are determined to go out and have some fun. As if we couldn't do that at home.

Although with the kids picked up and the place to ourselves perhaps we could.

Busy Busy Busy. washing cleaning teaching cajoling and bargaining.

and really its just a saturday.

missed the movie

laundry door fell off

hung some paintings

argued with the kids

wondered what i was going to do with my life

just another rainy day.

and in that moment....

                                                      and in that moment you understand

that moment after the first glass of wine

after you finish a cardio workout

when you wake up and make love to somebody

when you dive into the surf on a crisp morning and see the sky

when you stop long enough to pay attention

what it is all about.

then of course you forget. 

and life resumes as normal.

desirable fruit

the apple store

new, beautiful and sexy, full of the same old stuff you bought before yet somehow more desirable.
sure its faster, thinner, softer, easier to use, more complex if you want it, shinnier and above all the same price you paid for it years ago.

reminds me of that tom waits song - STEP RIGHT UP

check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByomIJf5n9w

the more things change the more they stay the same.

note to self, even though Jobs is dead go buy some apple shares..

were all in this together...

So there i was with the missus, lying in the bath under our deck.

There we were enjoying the serenity, on our i phones feeding our addictions.

Instagram. Andrew warned me that it might be habit forming. HA.Ha.ha

All those images, all that information flooding the worlds storage capacity, using up precious resources.


And i thought to myself, in this modern instant world, that pretty soon we are going to loose it all.

I mean really if the worlds need for storage doubles every six weeks what do you think is going to happen?

 That's the epitaph of us - the last of the human race

here lie the loosers and all their digital lives.

It seems we're all in this together...

The full moon makes us mad.

All of us in our own way. Different yet the same.
The kids get hyperactive and wake up in the middle of the night.
Bad dream they say, too cold they say, but I look out the window into the broad daylight of midnight and i know the reason.

who can sleep when its so bright, when the pull of the moon changes the surf, and the surf inside our skulls.

2.30 am, 3.30 am ,4.30 am .....

ahhhh time to get up.

modern miracle

The miracle of modern life,

Not only did i not know that my friends blogged but within ten minutes i'd have my own.
Not surprising for many, extra-ordinary for some.

It is a freezing morning here in sydneytown, and we huddle infront of the heater as the full moon sets in the west.

What little space there exists in front of the rinnae is taken up by the smallest bodies in the house.
The dog, the cat , Miles and Elsa - each sure that the other is snaffling more heat and occupying more space.

same story. different day.

wifi, heat, the internet and time - now shake!