Why I am beginning to remember dreams, I don't know. Didn't remember anything when I woke up but a neighbour stopped by to deliver eggs from his overly productive chickens (we have three dozen plus now and I know we aren't the only egg recipients. Told John if we die of cholesterol related heart failure the blame would be laid directly in front of his coop). He described how he had to hotwire his yard to prevent his dogs from going bush. The bitch, he said, never tried to jump the fence but one of the others did. Then I remembered the dream. In the SW corner of the front paddock was a tall red and white horse truck. It was almost as tall as a double decker. On top of the truck was tied a bay mare. She'd been sold or given to me by another neighbour. I was talking to him when I heard a commotion from the truck and turned around in time to see her leap over the side to the ground. It shattered her feet. The injury couldn't be seen but was there nevertheless. Overheard the neighbour tell someone else it didn't matter as she was already stuffed from racing and he was just getting her off his hands. I was angry and ashamed. Angry that he had such a callous attitude to a living creature and ashamed of myself for not tying her in more securely. I don't remember anything more.

Part of the dream might stem from one of those country tragedies experienced a few times a year. Two days ago noticed another sick galah. They are so easy to pick out now; they fly slowly, heavily, are slightly fluffed and eat the grain with careful consideration. Had a good look at him with binoculars although he would let us fairly close before flying off. His beak was longer and straighter than normal. Beak and feather. The warty pink skin around his black eyes was sunken. The heartbreaking thing is that birds look you right in the eye, even tiny Tony the tiny budgie. This small sick galah looked me right in the eye as I looked at him, knowing he would have to be put down as he was dying and while he was dying he was spreading disease. Richard saw him yesterday morning in the yards, too weak to fly away. He flew to ground instead. Richard came back and got the gun to shoot him. It depresses everyone even though it is the right thing to do. Richard said he was 'skinny as a rake handle'. Birds can fake their health for a long time. When the galah finally showed signs of illness it was too late to help him.

All the birds, wild and domestic, knew something horrible had happened. Even Dimitri squawked repeatedly from the verandah. The gun, rifle? isn't a loud one. Richard uses rat shot. The gun makes a small pop not a loud boom. Nevertheless every animal on the place knew that pop meant death. The wild birds stayed away from an hour or more. Death casts a pall over everything, even on the clearest brightest winter day when the colours are so vivid they almost make me squint.

Finished reading Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd last night. How different a book it was than what I expected. It was just a love story. Somehow I had the idea it was some sociopolitical treatise. How wrong I was! When I say just a love story, it was a love story written with a deep understanding and love of the principal characters. But what I loved about his writing was the descriptions of the weather, the countryside, the feel, smell, look and Life of Nature. It was the chief and most memorable character in the book. His description of the coming storm when he is trying to cover the ricks - I am there. I can see it. I can smell it. I feel the hairs rise on my arms at the raw power which comes, which makes the problems of Bathsheba and Gabriel and Boldwood trivial in comparison.

I don't think Hardy and his ilk are popular now. In the local library I find very few classics. I find them in op shops and garage sales. A pity. Just as a university education today is an education in science, technology, or business. What use is it to learn Latin or Greek or read the classics or understand history (because history unknown is history repeated?). I think we lose much by concentrating on the 'hard' subjects, educating ourselves to look for, understand and create more 'hard' facts. What about educating the creative spirit. Who reads poetry anymore? I keep a book of poems in the car. To read in small doses. I didn't know Walt Whitman except as a name. The only poet I was truly familiar with was John Donne. But Whitman! What a muscular take on life! He throbs and throttles and sighs and caresses. I don't understand most of what I read. I only get the sense of it. Yet what an introduction. Poetry is a muscular medium even in the hands of someone like E. Browning. She might be writing of the drone of a housebound fly while someone dies with the lightest most economical touch but she's punching me solidly in the solar plexus at the same time.

Finished and 'framed' the pastel painting yesterday. Keep forgetting to take a photo before sticking a finished work in a frame. But what's the point. I set up a MySpace account to promote my work and have done nothing with it. Promotion, self-promotion, it sounds faintly bilious, feels faintly bilious. I'd rather paint. I didn't start the new painting because I spent yesterday finishing off (finally) the pastel. We are going to Toowoomba on Wednesday to pick up interior paint (zinc blue). While there we are going to look at sofas, have a coffee (or lunch), find out where I go for the yoga workshop so I'm not wasting time looking for it on Saturday and, most fun of all, we're going to Murray's Art Supplies. I've drawn up a list of supplies. This is the kind of shopping I adore, unlike clothes shopping which I abhor! On the list is paper for drawing, sanded for pastel work and pads, pencils lots of *B-types', pastel pencils (new toy, they are great! found some cheap Montmartes to play with but want MORE!) and masking liquid (necessary for this next drawing). Interestingly, the yoga workshop venue and Murrays are probably right across the street from one another. Murrays is open until 1pm on Saturdays so even if I don't go on Wednesday, I can go on Saturday which might be better for browsing as Richard won't be with me. Hmmmm.

Rode the bike to Peterson Road yesterday. There is a hill (Peterson's Hill) that is so steep I cannot ride up it but must get off and walk. It is worth the extra effort and time for it is the fastest and scariest return trip! I am truly frightened flying down that hill. I don't know how fast I am going but it feels like 100mph. Then I must brake hard so that I don't come screaming out onto the highway and into the path of oncoming traffic. It is amazing that I find the bike riding so easy. Before I had to build up endurance to ride the 14km (round trip) from here to the Ma Ma Creek Shop. The only problem now is that my hands get sore and my back aches from the unnatural position one takes to ride these modern bikes. Must look for some kind of compromise set of handlebars so that I can sit up straight and take the weight off my hands.

Pyewackett returned from the Other Side to visit in a dream last night. A strange (aren't all dreams strange), convulated, and so so Busy dream. Seemed to go on and on with no progress. So here goes. I was in the American West somewhere. I was with a couple. They were newly married, on their honeymoon in fact but I had a history with the man, a David Schwimmer type (looks, not personality ie Friends personality). Richard was somewhere else. I missed him and wanted to be with him but was stuck *finishing* things with this man. She was blonde and had little to do with the dream story. We were at a motel in the middle of nowhere. This motel had a parking lot as large as a small country. Finding a parking spot within sight of the motel was a distinct advantage. It always seemed to be nighttime in the parking lot. I had a room to myself (hard to write, Debussy's Afternoon of a Faun on which distracts with it's perennial beauty). To eat one had to talk into one of those drive through intercoms. The food on offer was all junk; meaty, fried and horrid. There was nothing that I could eat. Thought perhaps I'd take my car-cum-motorcycle into the distant town and find something. A man accosted me while I was astride my bike, said it, a GB, was a very bad brand. He was officious, insulting and nosy. What I drove was none of his business. Told him I didn't eat meat or dairy either. Did he have something to say about that? (Know what character that dream person was based upon. Riding my bike a few days ago down the middle of DGR. Didn't hear approaching traffic because of the wind through the webbing of the bike helmet. This male person lay on his horn and stayed there. A polite bip bip would've been appropriate. I was so startled I pulled over to the right. No vehicle. I pulled onto the verge, not a great idea when on racing tyres. Still no vehicle. Finally a man pulled up beside me, said I should be on the left. True, of course but then logical thinking disappears when a loud noise erupts right behind one. Anyway, he pulled off. I stayed on the right just so if he looked in the rear view he'd see me. Petty, I know. Yesterday, while walking the dogs with Richard, he drove past and beeped the horn, long lazy beeps, not friendly taps. So that's why there was a short grey-haired man insulting my choice of vehicle in a dream parking lot).

Then there is Pyewackett in the snow. Sitting there, refusing to move, even though I have flattened a track for her. I think she's been lost and I'm very glad to find her again. Bring her into my room. I have a large shopping bag, with handles. Put towels inside and place Pyewackett on them. Ah, she thinks a toilet and proceeds to urinate. I'm not quick enough and some of it leaks onto the floor covering. So have to wash it before the landlady finds out. There is a small machine in the room. Wash them but find they still smell of urine so decide to do them in the machine on my bike (where the petrol tank would be).

Meanwhile I so want to finish the business with this dark-haired man. I kiss him. He pulls back. Is it the cigarettes, I ask. Yes. I've been smoking again and will quit when I return to Richard. Open my mouth (or his mouth) and see yellow-orange mucous clogging up the back of the throat.

And that's it. The dream remains vivid. Why I don't know. Sometimes I wake up knowing I've had a significant dream and can recall nothing. I'm only recording this dream, dull as it is, because it insisted on being remembered.

Got the heater going in here. Love old Queenslanders but they are not built for cold weather. Too many gaps, no insulation and, in this house, no curtains. Three degrees this morning. Bitter. Fingers just starting to thaw.

Couldn't sleep last night. Fell into bed exhausted at 8:30. Nights of insominia outnumber good nights especially since quitting smokes. Woke up at 1am. Too cold to get up and read a book so tossed and turned until 4, the last time I looked at the clock before 6. Then, when the most delicious sleep is possible, it is time to get up and feed everyone. I can hear Mallory playing with his bell in the next room. Tachimedes begins to do his vocal warm up exercises. Dimitri shuffles from one end of the verandah to the other and the outside galahs have quiet conversations with the wild ones. So I can't lay there and pretend I don't know everyone is hungry and waiting for breakfast, that the lorikeets will appreciate the warm nectar mix on a cold morning. That the wild galahs, perched on the overhead wires, don't really begin their day until they've had their morning wake up muffin at Glen Ellen.

One excellent result of the insomnia was the flash of a drawing I could try. Spent much of yesterday in abortive attempts to come up with an idea for the next work. Sketches on typing paper which came to nothing and met their fate in the compost bin. Funny how the idea came. I was in that hypnagogic state between sleeping and waking (have you ever tried to follow your thought processes back when in that realm? For me, impossible, as though an invisible curtain is drawn between the logical mind of sun and the fog-wreathed world of imagination, where I suspect the mind roams truly free, unfettered by physical rules and laws and regulations). Anyway, this image came to mind fully formed with such a jolt it snapped me out of that dreamy state. A good thing too for I didn't want to doze off and forget it or to remember later that I thought of *something* and not be able to remember what it was I conjured up.

Almost a week without a cigarette. No more morning coughing fits. No stink of cigarettes on me or in me, not in the house, in the furnishings, clothes or cats (yes, they stunk too - not to mention the years of second hand smoke - poor things, animal cruelty really). Trying very hard not to overeat. Not a problem during the day, have even reduced portion size, but at night, much more difficult. Eating fruit and munching pistachios, almonds and peanuts in shell.

Beating myself up for doing this, not doing that, mind like a hamster wheel spinning off dirty streamers of negativity. Walking the dogs yesterday I said to myself just Stop It! Stop It! Big sigh of relief. God, we're hard on ourselves. I'm hard on myself. I know I'm not perfect, far from it. I don't use my time well. I'm lazy and selfish and vain and all thos other labels I slap so freely onto my wrinkled forehead but I'm also quite okay. The animals are looked after and loved, my husband is looked after and loved, the house ditto, I turn out quite alot of art work, I still have an open mind and want to learn how to be with Balthazar in a way which is easy and comfortable for both of us. I give thanks daily for the good things in my life. I'm not sure I deserve them but I do appreciate them. I try and not think bad thoughts about people or things. I try and be mindful. I try and watch my tongue so that I don't score cheap shots by being 'right'. I generally try and be a better person than I was the day before.

I wouldn't let anyone else speak to me as I speak to myself. That book I never read, 'How to be Your Own Best Friend' is aptly titled. We aren't very good at it.

Haven't written about Dimitry in a very long time. Something has changed in that little feathered head. He (or I suspect She) is still timid and wary and easily frightened but she is also bolder, calmer and braver than before. I've put a cocky cage on the floor and feed her seed inside it. It was there for a month or so than I took it out to keep Marvin in while Terry lived in Marvin's aviary. When I put it back Dimitri was less cautious about me being nearby. Previously she'd leave the cage when I was 4 or 5 feet away. Now I am close enough to close the door if I wish. I leave when she goes inside to eat. If I move and she comes out I tell her to go back in and then leave when she does so. Want to gradually accustom her to having the door closed and then opened again while she's inside but if need be I can just close the door and move her - which is the whole idea. I want to get her off the verandah and into an aviary.

So she was a bit more confident when the cocky cage was returned to the verandah. The confidence also shows in the way she takes food from my fingers. She used to snatch and run even if the running was only two or three feet away. Now she takes the treat gently and slowly. I sit on the floor and feed her millet. After the first couple of times she hardly moves away at all but stands just in front while she eats. Get the feeling that one day she'll lower her head for a scratch. That would be an achievement, a break out the champagne moment.

I reread this post and think it's not written well enough for anyone else to read. I mean look at that first sentence or two. How boring. Why would anyone continue reading. Maybe I should delete them and go straight to what meat there is but then I realize, no this post is for me. When I wrote in journals I didn't write for an audience, I wrote for me. I wrote because I had to and it didn't matter whether it was worthy of some invisible reader. The reader was me. Writing a journal on a blog changes things, like a physicist changes the results of his experiments by observing them. Or, perhaps, reality tv shows have nothing to do with reality because the participants are always aware at some level they are being filmed. So, in an endeavour to be true to myself I'll leave the boring bits.

Today the first cigarette free day. It was harder yesterday stretching out those last few smokes so they lasted until bedtime. Even resorted to having a few puffs then putting the cigarette out until the next time I had a craving. Today is far easier in comparison. Hardest time around lunch. Lunch can take anything from an hour to two hours depending upon if there is a good midday movie on. Today it took 15 minutes. Usually if there's a movie on I work on a drawing. The movie is 'company' if it's not engrossing enough to warrant full attention. Too energetic today to do anything but get up, do the dishes and head out the door to reinflate bicycle tyres.

Took the bike for a half hour spin. Easier than I expected. I suspect yoga has just made me generally fitter than I used to be. The hardest part is a) sore 'nether regions' and b) pain in lower back from those horrible lowset handlebars. Might invest in upright handlebars. As for the groin, will just have to get 'calloused' up somehow. Don't think Richard plans to ride his bike so might nick his sheepskin seat cover. He went for a grand total of two rides and whinged all the way. Not his cup of tea.

We have been a tiny bit snappy with one another but realizing that we are in the throes, as it were, it doesn't escalate. Hardly worth mentioning really. Don't know why I did.

Had a, for me, really small lunch. Small helping of salad, two crackers instead of three. That's the only way I'll keep from gaining weight, smaller helpings and more exercise. I do have the leeway of portion size for I do Live Large as far as food goes but because of no dairy and the active lifestyle I've lost weight despite myself. Now I don't have the luxury of smoking as an appetite suppressant and metabolism accelerator so have to find other ways to remain steady. I know it's vain but it is so depressing to be chunky.

Countdown to Quitting

Day Three: Haven't stopped smoking yet but it is three days after making the decision to do so. Have one pack and a bit left so it's not too long before having to face those first three crucial days of doing without. But there is much to gain too (hopefully not weight!). Having my breath back, feeling true to myself, gain in energy and sense of smell, perhaps even whiter teeth.

So why have I chosen to quit after giving up attempting to give up for so many years? Of course there are the physical side effects; a smokers cough when I've never had a smoker's cough. Noticeable tingling in my hands and arms in bed from lack of circulation, not enjoying a smoke as much as I used to but the most important reason is how smoking is like having a huge hairy wart on the end of my nose. It doesn't fit with who I am, who I want to be. I blame yoga for this. Yoga and pranayama. It's not only that my lung capacity sucks, it is a Big Lie to continue smoking when yoga brings me closer, however, slowly, to the truth of my being.

And my Being doesn't smoke, does not treat herself with disrespect, does not intentionally and consistently harm herself. She does not pollute the air which is already so polluted with the effects of humanity. I gave up meat because I don't believe in the killing of animals to feed me something I don't need. I gave up dairy because of the pain it causes to cows and calves. So I can be compassionate to others. Why not myself?

Quitting

Have just lit a cigarette in a post where I'm going to give myself a pep talk about giving them up. Have you ever seen someone nicely turned out, beautifully groomed, stylish clothes and wearing tennis shoes (like Cybil Shepherd on the Oscar red carpet once - good for her!) well, that's my life. Cigarettes strike such a false note, especially as yoga is such a big part of it now. I mean, pranayama is all about The Breath. And I have smoker's cough. Who am I kidding? I read of these luscious yoga retreats that I'll never go on because I couldn't go without a fag or if I did sneak a smoke, everyone would know.

And then there's Richard. If I quit, he will, without question. He tried a few months ago but I puffed away around him. What chance did he have? We both would be so much better off, feel much better, all those obvious things, if I just quit.

I'm scared of two things, that horrible sickness of last time when I vomited like a conveyer belt of toxins. Not to get too icky about it but usually when you vomit, it's called a heave for good reason. Not pleasant, pretty disgusting, but that time it was scary. My mouth was open and it just kept on coming without surcease. But I did survive. The second thing is derived from vanity. I don't want to put on weight. I'm down to 118, perhaps less as I haven't weighed myself in a month or more. I haven't been below 120 since 1987 (from a broken heart and fear, not the ideal way to lose weight).

A de-tox juice/vegetable fast might come in handy when I quit (have 2 or 3 packs in the pantry still). Get it all over with at once - of course that means giving up coffee and wine too, perhaps too much to ask for at one time. Giving up dairy products (except for the two tablespoons of powdered milk in the homemade bread) was easy. Thought I'd miss cheese but I don't. Yes, I have chocolate too but think I can give that a miss as well.

If I become a non-smoker I'll get my breath back. I know they say it takes ten years for it to return to normal but the increased lung capacity is noticed almost immediately. My mouth will taste better. I won't reek of cigarettes and won't feel self-conscious around non-smokers, which are legion. The house will smell better. The house will sell better if it doesn't have that nicotine residue. I will have more energy, especially initially when activity substitutes for smoking, but long term as well.

But most of all I will be true to myself. I try and kid myself about my smoking. It's lying. I know it's lying and that's the worst part. Being unkind to me. Lying to me. Doing damage to me, consciously, intentionally, continuously. Why be so mean to myself?

W

Richard's gone to town. All morning to myself. Should be cleaning the bird verandah, which I will, just later. Doesn't work expand in the time available to do it or some such thing? If it does it will take me all morning and part of the afternoon to do the chores. But that's okay. Feels good to be alone and know my time is my own without interruption. Don't get me wrong. I love Richard and do not wish to live my life without him. At the same time, I believe spending time completely alone is necessary. I breathe more deeply.

I have a pastel painting going that I'm excited about. It's a departure from what I've usually done. It's gone through two metamorphoses already. I'd seen, of half seen, this painting on the wall of a room on a television program. This often happens. I see something or partly see something and it sparks off an idea. In this case I visualized a big big sky, a desert sky with pale blue shading down to a pale sand colour. In the back ground were two somewhat horizontal black slashes of colour, like beetling eyebrows and in the foreground, right near the edge of the paper, was a black sphere. But that painting didn't eventuate. The colour wasn't right to begin with and along the way the impact of that mental image vanished. Then I remembered an intriguing water stain that is on the back of an old horse head sketch. Copied it loosely onto the paper. The big black circle from the previous painting didn't fit so I wiped it out. Now I have this sinuous dreamy painting in greens, yellows and blue with some pink. It's kind of abstract but in it is a woman's anatomically incorrect body and a large face in 3/4 view. Not clearly delineated but they are there. Without intending to I've drawn inspiration from Birgit Erfurt's Karma Tarot. Perhaps in the curvy shapes and shadows but definitely there. Still, I like it. It's a far cry from the meticulously (for me) drawn pencil sketches where I lose myself in the details. This is much looser.

A few years ago I went to the Toowoomba Gallery and saw this painting, totally abstract, that was filled with light. It was almost spiritual this light. I kept returning to have aother look. Unfortunately I don't remember the name of the artist. That painting has stayed with me. This last work has the merest touch of that painting. A glow, a sense of things unseen. Admittedly, it's been fun to work with colour again. Even Natalia is cooperating in not playing with the pastel sticks.

The success of the application to quarry the mountain made for a couple of crappy days. It was as though someone had died. I grieved at the same time as I was angry. Rather than pretend I wasn't feeling those things, as useless as they were, I just let them through. I was mad and sad and that was that. Luckily the feelings passed and I'm my usual cheerful self again. In fact, in the past two days there's been this subtle but pervasive feeling of joy. Perhaps because it is finally over. When living under a shadow for such a long time, one forgets what real sunlight feels like. There's a long hard road ahead. We have to make the house saleable which means painting four rooms and, once the house is ready, cleaning the outside of dust and cobwebs and then keeping it that way. I ceased to worry about the thousands of black house spiders which make their homes under the eaves. There are so many and they are so tenacious that almost as soon as they are removed they return. Richard has to clean out the shed, a mammoth, nay Herculean task. He's been collecting 'stuff' for twenty years in case something might come in handy. There is some concreting to do and some gardening but otherwise just maintenance stuff. I'll have to clean the feed and tack rooms and keep them dust and web free as well.

Then comes the balancing act of putting the house on the market at the same time as we start looking for a place of our own. I've searched for real estate from Tenterfield to Nambour, from Byron Bay to Nanango. I am confident we'll find the right place - then comes the move. Thirteen birds plus two others that must be caught to take with us. Felicity won't survive without supplementary feeding and as Suki is her mate he needs to come too. Moving aviaries and birds will be the most logistically difficult - but not impossible. But first things first and the first thing is to clean the ruddy bird verandah!