Listening

On Friday last week I presented a short piece that I had written for the Navigators Project. I think listening to music while lying on the ground should be done more often :)

(thanks to Voin for the pic!)

Procrastination Queen

I am the queen of procrastination. I have been avoiding this blog like the plague. It's not that I have forgotten it, or that I've been stuck for ideas about stuff to write about. No, not at all. I've simply been procrastinating.

Granted, life is kinda crazy busy right now - but when is that not the case? We have this unarticulated fantasy that at some point in the future there will be enough time to do the things we are not doing now because we are too busy. I know for a fact that's never going to be the case with me. I am always trying to do enough things for 3 people - right now it is:
- working full-time on the Melbourne Festival show
- studying full-time
- working half-time for money

There is a paradox for me where I get really inspired and motivated when I'm busy, but not for the thing I'm supposed to be working on. When I'm practicing, I'll have a great idea for a theatre show; when I'm in a lecture, I'll have an idea for a song, but when I sit down at the instrument the last thing that I want to do is work on the song. I seem to get the motivation all in the wrong places! And then when I do have a few hours of free time on the weekend, do you think that I want to jump into that project that I've been dreaming about all week? Of course not! I want to sit on the couch with a cup of coffee and the Sunday papers. Time and motivation for me seem not to connect and the result is procrastination.

Practice again

It has been a struggle to get practicing again after my 2-week hiatus. On Monday I couldn't face the instrument, on Tuesday afternoon I tuned and improvised and played a couple of my recital pieces, yesterday I did about an hour's serious practice, and today it was close to two hours. Being a musician requires a ridiculous amount of self-discipline, and sometimes I wonder whether I am up to the task.

Home again, home again, jiggity jig

It is very strange to be back in 'civilisation' after spending the past two weeks in the seeming emptiness of far north Queensland. There is no way I can possibly encapsulate the entire trip into words, and certainly not in one post, so I will simply give some of my impressions, and elaborate on them at another time.

- Time is a strange thing - my whole perception of time changed while I was away, and to my surprise, the hours of travel along dusty dirt roads passed quickly and became almost like a meditation.

- The way we percieve different landscapes changes the longer we spend time there - many times during the trip I felt quite alien from the landscape when I first arrived in a place, and was sure I would never feel comfortable or at home there, but after a day in that place I started to feel quite differently about it.

- Australia is truly a land of contrasts - we would be travelling through parched, dry bushland and suddenly come across a beautiful billabong with waterlilies and brolgas; at other times we would be standing on a paradise beach with coconut palms and azure sea, but not be able to swim because of the deadly crocodiles and stingrays; in the dry season the rivers are only stagnant puddles along dry watercourses, when in the wet they rise 10 meters and cut off all road access.

- The amazing warmth and generosity shown to us by the three indigenous communities we visited will touch me forever, I think. It was one of the most beautiful and humbling things that I have ever experienced, to be welcomed with open arms by people who have been so dreadfully wronged by the culture that I represent.