This time of the year the air gets too heavy to blow around all willy nilly and Septemberish, and some days I wonder if I’m breathing oxygen, or growing gills like Aquaman. I wake at 5am with the light and the heat, menopausal beadlets starting to form anywhere that skin touches skin- between boobs, at the backs of knees, between fingers. The mornings are hazy with the smoke of faraway fires and salt and the water attached to the air. Always the water.

This part of Queensland is impossible to inhabit if you don’t like moist. The word that sends distasteful shivers to napes of necks of women the world over, is our way of being for the next couple of months or so. And with it, the moist brings a smell. She smell that has become my smell of summer. 

Back in the olden days of my childhood, summer used to smell of holidays that stretched out like the Princess Highway mixed with Sunnyboys and chlorine and the hot wet concrete we would lay on, lizardlike to warm ourselves after a swim. 

Then in the less olden days of my teen-age, summer smelt of coconut oil basting crispy skin and lemon juice bleaching our hair, with a whiff of tobacco and a scratch of a Redhead from someone’s Mum’s stolen cigarettes. It smelt of furtive kisses and sweaty palms and wetsuits drying and the sharp acetic zest of resin as someone fixed a ding in their board.

In the modern era of my 20s, summer smells were a fetid mix of fresh beer and stale beer and tap beer and the tang of tins, mixed with the fusty cheese from last night’s pizza, still soaking into the cardboard box. All of that rolled into a smell of potential and enthusiasm as holiday jobs shifted into looming careers and those uni smells became things of the past.

In my early 30s summer smelt like home, as I exhaled into the arms of the safest man in the world, and inhaled security blended with promise of a future unexpected. The smells of proper coffee and dry-hot Melbourne tar, of salt from the bay mixed with the fumes of industriousness became the smell of all of my now summers.

Summer now is made up of frangipani and sugar cane, of distant ginger and those stupid little white flowers that wink from glossy hedges and make me sneeze. There’s a sensation of salt and heaviness, until the sky finally cracks and we bring out the stormbeers, cleansing the balconies and making way for the smell of the indolent days of sunshine. The smell is laced with sandy zinc cream and wet dogs and soggy towels and love. Always love. 

The best smell of all. 

The Shitcat isn’t dead (again).

On Tuesday morning there was quite the commotion at Asher HQ, as the MASSIVE horsedog who is agisted next door and who is, how shall we say it, not a cat person, pulled his owner over and dragged her over our driveway like cheese on a grater, to chase Woofa the Shitcat. (Who was most likely lying supine and flashing her derrière at him.) The owner came running at me, screaming, “My dog just killed your cat.”

So I calmed down the sobbing jockey whilst I looked for a trail of blood, tiny cat bones and general destruction in the direction of #deadcat. None. And no deadcat to be seen.

Except said cat was nowhere to be found. Strange behaviour for a dead cat indeed.

As if in response to the mayhem and maiming, the heavens opened up, and we had what Queenslanders call “a drop of rain”. The type of rain that makes you glad you are wearing a bra. And waterproof mascara. And you have sandbags in your garage that your Mum made you get from council once, when they were going for free (I case of floods. No we don’t live near a river. But: free.)

I searched and searched through the deluge for #deadcat for at least two minutes, before deciding the lack of blood spatter meant she was without harm or without a trace (I’ve watched the shows, I know how this stuff rolls) and it was time to do what all good cat owners do: wait, call “pusspusspuss” in that high pitched voice that cats universally love loathe, wait, shake the dry food pellets, wait.

By and by, the thing that all cat owners know about happened: #deadcat reappeared. Bedraggled and a bit skittish, but decidedly #alivecat. No sign of blood or eviscerated entrails or shards of bones chewed by the jaws of megalodog. Nothing.

She stared at me for a beat, did one cross sounding miaow, demanded food and then started licking her puckered area. Definitely not dead today.

The overall casualty count was: two skinned knees (The Meg owner), one wet t-shirt that was winning NO competitions this day (cat owner), one heart on the verge of infarction (cat owner).

I know one day #alivecat will be #deadcat, but my goodness it’s hard to believe that supershitcat will ever meet her maker. And she sure knows how to burst my corpuscles. We do love you Woofa, but can you hold off on the near death action for awhile?

The vet said ‘cats like this’ often live into their twenties. Pass me the smelling salts.

It’s fun isn’t it: not choosing. When we are at some sort of a crossroads in thought, and we decide not to choose. Maybe we toss a coin, ask someone else to decide, or even just refuse to choose until the choice is made for us by some external event or person.

I love how we can dally and dilly all over the place, making nice little crop circles on the carpet whilst maintaining a definite and definitive decision not to decide. It’s like that we think that if we somehow wait long enough it will “all work out.” Because, and here’s the hallelujah and praise the baby cheeses: it will. It will work out some how. It just might not be the how that we really wanted. And then sometimes, weirdly, it is. Which I suppose is why we do it in the first place. At some time in our personal history we have not chosen, and life has worked out just fine and dandy thank you very much.

So we keep doing it. This not choosing.

The best and most funny thing about not choosing, is that it is an actual choice. Which is why it’s the best cosmic joke going around. When we abdicate responsibility and say, “I just can’t choose right now” we are making a choice. And the energy/universe/whatever comes on over and matches that up and says, “Here you go, have this then”.

I have a feeling that the thing you then get is actually a perfect match for what you really wanted all along. Or at least it’s the thing that you think you deserve. And so goes. So when we find ourselves flipflopping all over the place and being in analysis paralysis, then maybe it’s a chance to say, “I choose not to choose.” And then see what happens next.

As long as we are happy with anything much, or nothing much, or all of the much- who knows with this little roulette wheel- then all will be well. Just know that not choosing is choosing.

..when you know stuff and don’t do it and then you find out that all you ever needed to do in life you already knew? But you just didn’t do it. Or maybe it’s just me.

I’m doing a course at the moment and the coach (Katrina Ruth) is kicking my arse. Not because it’s new and challenging information (but she does have a cool way of cutting through the BS) but because it isn’t. We just had some homework to do, and one of the things she said was, “How can you expect consistent results if you don’t do consistent work?” SO annoying.

There’s a meme getting around on StalkerBook at the moment saying something about how exercise is hard, but being a fat bastard with no cardiovascular fitness and dying of a heart attack is harder. And being married is hard, but going through a divorce and using your kids as weapons whilst your solicitor banks the drama-cheques is harder. So choose your hard.

And so it is with getting what we want, in the areas we say are important to us. If we profess it’s important to be healthy, and we want to be surfing when we’re 80, then there’s a fair chance we need to be doing that now. I have a feeling that things don’t magically just fall into place at 79 years, 11 months. The same goes for all of the life areas. Things aren’t just gonna happen if we don’t put in the effort, and that means now. Not next week or year. And not just today, but tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

Question: What do you want to come to fruition? What do you say that you want to be happening when you’re 80? Say it out loud right now, and then chop chop, take a tiny step. Want to be fit? Drop and give me ten right now.

I bet you can’t wait to hear mine.

Pause for effect.

I’ve been saying for years that when I’m 80 I want to be a crazy old lady who drinks Champagne on the regular (not sparkling mind, the proper stuff) and wears high heels every day. So it’s only fitting that I got myself into training, and got these bad boys to celebrate Coco’s gallstone removal. Or just life.

Now someone pass me the Veuve.

Today has been a day of discovery. We began not knowing what it would hold (does anyone ever?) and as we panned along, we found a richness that we didn’t know was there. The gold is always hidden in the dust isn’t it? You have to be prepared to look.

We are in the hospital getting the next part of Coco’s gall stones dealt with. Hopefully the hand is a good one. If we end up with a pair of threes I’m asking for a reshuffle. But that is a game for another day. Today we held some aces.

We arrived at the hospital “way too early” (sorry, but you kinda need to tell us when to rock up if “too early” is gonna be a thing) so what else were we to do but hit the shops?

After the last surgery and our extended stay, I did that thing every desperate person does: make a deal with ??the universe?? and the deal was: if we ever get out of hospital, I’m going directly to Tiffany to get Coco a present. I had something in mind, but I wanted to see if she loved it too. Finally, as we were released onto the bustle of Stanley Street, we couldn’t do anything but go home to our people and have our minds and bodies enfolded in their arms. We wanted to smell sugarcane marinated in humidity, and for the salty air to wash the disinfectant from our nostrils. We wanted for things so simple that Tiffany felt out of step with us.

Today was different. Today we were spilling over with hope and spark so we bought hot pink shoes and gold skirts, plush cuddle cats and silly sushi keyrings. And we went to Tiffany.

A small while ago, a healing angel, dressed as a fairy taught Coco how to regulate her state with mala-bead breathing and a dusting of magic. So I had a little idea that a beaded bracelet would be the perfect thing for her to move through life with. An anchor to help her hold fast when the wind springs up, or a little rip appears. An anchor with a heart-shaped charm to remind her of her brave, if the days threaten to wash it away.

For courage is coeur is heart, and what better place to hold that Robin’s-egg blue charm to match the sky and the sea and her eyes and the bluebird of happiness than in her heart? Ready to come out any time she chooses.

All part of the gold we found, on a day that could have been dusty.

My girl has gone to sleep now, Mimi the horror-faced toy who has been at every hospital visit since babyhood (and would hold the reaper at bay), under one arm, and the cuddle cat over her head to drown out the mobile phone conversation from the Dad in the bay next to us who is planning a breakfast-shift somewhere. I asked Nathan earlier why people must speak so loudly on mobiles and he said it’s because the other person is so far away. The breakfast must be in the North Pole. Hey dude, tell Santa I said hi and I’d like some noise cancelling headphones, STAT, please and thank you.

As soon as I’m sure she’s in a deep enough sleep I’m stealing the cat, because between North Pole guy in bay one, snoring Mum in bay two and the elevator-style bedtime music coming from bay three, I think I am going slowly insane. Actually, hold the slow, I’m already there.

Just me and you, blog. Sitting in the dust.

Yesterday I had an afternoon where lots of things were time dependant. I don’t like time to rule me- I prefer to let it roll along close by me, sometimes leading, sometimes following and sometimes, in those sweet moments of flow we even hold hands, time and I. Yesterday time was boss.

I had to pick up some cool presents for our Chicks Who Click private coaching group, then bust into the corona-free zone of the school to get Coco’s case left over from camp (yes, the two day old poo-water marinating in the Queensland sun smelt DIVINE for those of you following along), then be back to get the kids to work and singing lessons. Time-frames. And none of them mine. Which doesn’t sound like much, until I decided to believe the voice in my car “Do a u-turn and return to the route” instead of the voice in my head saying, “I don’t think that’s right.”

It wasn’t.

So I ended up sitting near Gibsons (which is the other side of town if you aren’t from Newsa), blinking like a mogwai, and wondering why on earth I didn’t listen to my brain instead of Siri. When you organise yourself to the nth degree, any deviation can throw the whole space-time-continuum thingy awry, and the earth shifts on its axis. Or perhaps I’m being a little dramatic. Blogging can do that to a person you know.

So I did what any self respecting loon would do: I breathed out, I smiled, and then I described (out loud) how the next hour would play out. How I would do all.of.the.things with ease and grace. Which of course made me laugh, as grace isn’t really my thang. (Have I ever told you about my “grace”-or fall from- on the escalator in Paris? Comment below if you must know more.)

The dude hosing the path out front of Gibsons gave me a smile- as you do when you encounter an unhinged Mum in a pretend 4WD near school pickup time- which I interpreted as him thinking, “Wow, she’s hot for an old bird, and I do like ’em with a bit of cray-cray.” Winky emoji. (Or maybe it’s the eggplant?)

Back to the narrative:

Guess what?

I got it all done. In fact, I got it done with time to spare. Time and I were mates again. Sorry for being mean, forgive me Time?

Which leads me to the point, and the thing that Coco and I were discussing this morning. Sometimes we think we can’t. Maybe we think we can’t get it all done. Or we can’t take the leap. Or we don’t have the skills. Or maybe we think we are too small, too weak, too dumb, too lazy, too incapable. But the funny thing is, when we set our intentions clearly, when we profess what we want, when we put in our specific order (I’ll have the steak medium-rare and put the gravy on the side please) and make sure it is received, then we can do more than we think we are capable of.

We aren’t incapable. We are IN CAPE ABLE.

We can all be super heroes in our own lives. In capes (obvs).

My cape says ‘The Fabulous Popping Nacho,” Liam’s says, “The Mighty Lightening Bolt,” and Coco’s says, “The Amazing Little Bee”. (Yes, we all have our talents, and yes, if I could choose again I’d now be The Chick of Truth, but sometimes you have to work with what you’ve been given, don’t you?). Point being: we all have capes. It’s just that sometimes they get chucked to the back of the cupboard with all the unmatched socks and the now dusty Apple box with the receipts from last Christmas. And we forget we have them.

Here’s some homework: Dust off your cape. (You’re more than able.)