Friday, 26 August 2016

Feeling more positive

Today I went for a walk again, down through Darling Harbour and into Chinatown, then back up Harris Street home. It had been a few days since I had gone for a walk due to the rain. We had some days of light rain - and some days of heavy rain as well - here in Sydney and I stayed inside on those days. I was also waiting for a phone call to bring me into the city to sign some papers. So today I felt really invigorated as I stretched my legs in the streets walking down on my usual route.

I had also been reading the third installment of Knausgaard, which is about his childhood. I have to say that I am a bit disappointed in the way the series is taking. I so much enjoy Knausgaard's recounting of his adult life. There's something so terrible about his father in his childhood that makes you want to turn away. It fills me with a kind of despair.

Not that I am comparing my childhood with Knausgaard's, but I also had a mixed relationship with my father. He was also, like Knausgaard's father, of short temper. And he let you know how he was feeling. I remember terrible anger suddenly flashing in his black eyes when we would be doing something together and I did the wrong thing. I broke the bit off a drill once and had to apologise profusely for the error, not that I meant to do it. But that was his way. He was of that older generation who meted out punishment seemingly - from the child's point of view - at random.

In general I am feeling much more optimistic than I was after mum died. In those first days and weeks there was a heavy pall over everything that would not lift. Now I feel sometimes even light and happy - a happiness that can come just from seeing the faces of different people in the street - for apparently no reason at all. I think it is the exercise that is making me feel more collected, more seated in things, and even sometimes actually happy. It is making a difference in my life. I am grateful for the nagging friends who got me out of bed and onto my feet. Here I am these days stamping the pavement in the sun and even when the clouds are threatening rain. I can sometimes feel the spatter of wetness from above as the rain falls from the sky.

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