It’s spring in Adelaide, and a gorgeous time of year. Blossoms everywhere. There’s still a chill in the air, but the days teeter on warm, and we know winter is almost behind us. My chickens are fat and fluffy and laying again. My garden has a new lease on life, and I want to be outside in it, pottering around. I’ve pulled up weeds, chopped back my passion-fruit vine, replanted trees and perennial veggies and herbs. I’m back at work after a month off, and uni is still chugging along. I have a lot to be grateful for, despite recent posts suggesting otherwise. And inspired by this prompt from Poets & Writers, which is a different perspective on gratitude, I decided to accept the challenge of writing about my favourite things (although I’m not really writing vignettes):

Raindrops on roses, whiskers on kittens, brown paper packages tied up with strings, cream-colored ponies, crisp apple strudels, wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings. These are a few, mundane yet specific, favorite things the protagonist from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The Sound of Music sings about as an uplifting way to buoy the characters’ spirits in moments of sorrow and distress. This week write a series of short nonfiction vignettes, each one titled with one of your favorite things. Reflect on how each favorite originated, your memories associated with the items, and how they make you feel.

Favourite Things

Fostering Kitties

After Bella died, I knew I couldn’t go through that heartbreak again. But what to do — because I really, really, really like having a cat around. A friend told me about an organisation she volunteered for — Safe Pets Safe Families. They place pets — whose owners are in crisis — in foster families until the owner can reclaim them, and when Bella died, I signed up. For two years, I’ve been fostering cats whose owners are homeless, victims of domestic violence, are hospitalised because they have mental health issues or are elderly and had falls. One owner was incarcerated. These are people who love their pets and don’t want to give them up: they just need someone to care for them while they’re getting their lives sorted. Owners just need some help to get themselves unstuck, and often they can’t or won’t get this help until they know their pet is being cared for.

At the time of writing, I’m fostering my seventh cat and it’s been such a rewarding thing to do. The longest foster I had was five months, the shortest was two weeks. Of course, I get attached to them and I cry (a little) when they go back to their owners, but they are happy tears. I borrow them for a little while, then give them back. I call them my library cats. One of the reasons I do this is because of all the people involved in getting Bella home, who were so kind to her. I have so much empathy for the owners, because I know what it’s like to have your life on hold because your decisions affect your pet.

Movies & TV

I’m a bit old school, and while I do stream movies and love going to the cinema, I have a DVD player — actually two. I borrow DVDs from my library and I’ve also slowly been rebuying the DVDs I gave away to charity shops before I went to Vietnam. I’m doing this because rewatching favourite movies is like hanging out with an old, dear friend — it’s familiar and comforting. When I’m feeling down (hardly ever now) or don’t know what to do with myself (also hardly ever), I pop on a favourite DVD and give my endorphins a big rush.

Recently, I bought Rocky for a song, and was blown away by how truly great this movie is. The writing, the acting, the story — all of it. It came out when I was in highschool and I loved it then. Of course, I had to borrow all the Rocky movies from the library and then I started on the Creed spin-offs. And then I went on a Rambo kick, although I didn’t enjoy them as much as Rocky. Benjamin Button, Footloose, Dirty Dancing, Lost Boys, True Blood, Mad Men, Tomb Raider, Twin Peaks, 21 Jump St, Booker, The Affair, Burn Notice, Bladerunner — all have been brillliant to rewatch. I’m thinking Prison Break, Heroes and Lost are next…

Music

But it’s not only movies and TV, but music! And 70s and 80s music in particular. Australian music from this era just rocks, and listening to it live, which I did recently, makes me quite emotional. I think it’s because I realise that I’m on the downward trajectory of my life. Look, none of us really knows how long we have on this planet, but once you get to sixty (which is me), you know you don’t have as long as you did ten or even five years ago. The music from my teens and twenties reminds me of how much promise I had. I had minimal responsibilities, almost zero self-awareness and I flitted. I was carefree, especially when it came to work and boys. I temped a lot and was in and out of jobs, but could always pay my bills. The boys were decent, and (I thought) in never-ending supply, so I was careless with some hearts, which I regret. I would go out dancing all night on the weekend, which began on a Thursday for me, and ended on a Sunday.

Favourites were Kent Town,  Legtrap, Old Lion and Findon Hotels; Mansions and Charles Sturt Taverns; Black Rose Piano Bar; Glenelg Football Club; La Sing Karaoke Bar (yes, it’s been going *that* long). Often we’d end up at the Grecian Barbecue for a yiros after our Big Night Out. My soundtrack for that time was INXS, Cold Chisel, Moving Pictures, Joe Jackson, Pink Floyd, Do Re Mi, The Divinyls, The Models, Mondo Rock, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Soft Cell, Sex Pistols and anything Glam Rock. I’d often go out with my sister (we shared a house) and we had such a lot of fun. I mourn our relationship (and miss her so much more than I miss my daughter) but don’t know if we’ll ever be able to go back to talking again, let alone being best friends, which we were.

Learning Stuff

Ever since school was my happy place and I was rewarded for being smart, I’ve always loved learning. Yes, there’s formal education via university — I studied my first degree at 26 and am studying law, which is my fourth degree — but informal learning is just as rewarding. I’m always learning about writing and sign-up for frequent Craft Talks and Writing Our Lives workshops. I subscribe to a shitload of Substacks, particularly about flash fiction and non-fiction. As an aside, writing flash is so interesting to me because it’s such an interesting form to master and I regularly enter the Furious Fiction contest. Creating something out of nothing is truly magical and I can’t believe what my brain comes up with, especially when there are contraints. Now I’m taking art classes, focussing on watercolour — it’s easy, but deceptively challenging. I learned to embroider in Hanoi, and that was super rewarding because it looks challenging, but was deceptively easy. I read voraciously, particularly alternative news sites because if I’ve learned anything from the COVID scamdemic, it’s that you can’t trust the mainstream media. Or the government. But that’s an ongoing story, and I continue learning about that too.

Young People

I’m so lucky to have young people in my life, and they are so cool. I have my uni buddies, and I have the international students that I support at work. I do mix with older people, but young people keep me grounded and relevant — at least, I think they do. And they are so interesting and smart! There may be decades that separate us, but we manage to find plenty of common ground: vinyl records, music from the 80s, 90s and 00s, movies and TV, books, dating (not me anymore, but them), career aspirations (again, not me anymore), overcoming loneliness, dealing with anxiety, your life purpose, poor teaching at uni, settling into a new city and country. So many things!

No, we don’t have a shared history (my law buddies don’t know who Don Dunstan is and fun fact(!) Don and I share a birthday), but they are always kind and pleased to see me. They appreciate my wisdom and seek my advice. They like hearing my stories, and my comparisons with life today.  They appreciate my forthrightness and my Do-No-Harm-But-Take-No-Shit-From-Anyone attitude. They all wish that dating apps didn’t exist, that the world was simpler and that somehow, they can make a difference.

Being Home

I’ll admit it: I’m a homebody. I love being home. Even when I lived in Hanoi, and was travelling to lots of cool places for free (because it was my job), the novelty and excitement eventually wore off and I much preferred staying home in my cozy apartment and ordering in. It’s not that I do anything special at home, but I just like being there, on my own, in my drama-free space. Just me. I can listen to music, watch a movie or TV, read, craft, paint, write, cook, nap, study. Whatever. No one is bothering me, and I’m not bothering anyone else. Home is a healing, creative place for me and I find there is simple, quiet and peaceful joy in just being home, alone. Apart from the kitties, that is.

Gardening

In Hanoi, I lived in a fourth floor apartment that didn’t even have a balcony for pots, so when I got home to my unit in Australia, I loved being able to potter around in my garden. I have planted fruit trees since I returned — a guava, nectarine and peach — and already had a well-established loquat tree that I’ve never been able to get to enjoy the fruits because the possums beat me to it. This year, I’m keeping an eye on how well the fruit is ripening and will throw a net over if I have to! My garden is not big, but it’s enough to grow a frangipani tree or two and have a vegetable patch and grow herbs. My lemon tree, which was almost dead because my tenants — who were great! — were not gardeners. A lot of TLC by way of water and fertiliser — lots of chicken poo! — and it is doing beautfully, and I can get lemons from my tree now, instead of buying them. I compost and start seedlings and feed my chickens and it’s just lovely.

Former Favourite Things That I Hope Will Be Again

Travel

I loved travelling, going off and having adventures and experiencing different cultures and ways of life. In some ways, it defined me because people were always asking where I was off to next. Since the Australian Government locked us out of the country  in 2020, and it was SO fucking difficult — and expensive — to get back home, I admit to being afraid to get stuck again. The government have done it once, and received literally NO pushback, so who’s to say it won’t happen again? I did go back to Vietnam at the end of 2022, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would. I briefly toyed with going to Morocco (or similar) at the end of the this year, but again: I’m hesitant to travel now.

Photography

My kit lens died in 2020 (notice a theme here?) just after I got back to Australia and I haven’t replaced it. Once I do (I scored an unused one off eBay recently) and the weather improves (ie stops raining, even though it’s warmer), I’ll take myself on walks around Adelaide. We are a UNESCO City of Music and have beautiful murals and architecture and beaches that make for stunning photographs. I’ve always wanted to exhibit my travel photos, and after buying a photograph at the Nyland Exhibition, I would maybe like to enter a photo next year… and definitely will at the Royal Adelaide Show for 2025.

Vietnamese

I started learning Vietnamese as soon as I arrived in Hanoi, and was super impressed with my ability to learn one of the most difficult languages in the world. Being able to speak to the locals made my day-to-day life so much easier. When I got back to Adelaide, I tried to keep it up with online lessons, but because I had almost zero contact with Vietnamese, it fell by the wayside. Then in 2022, when I went back to Vietnam, I picked it up again quite quickly. When I got back home, I did Duolingo for a while, but lost interest because I wasn’t having natural conversations. Recently, I had a day where I was speaking a lot of Vietnamese, and thought: I don’t want to lose this, so I’m looking at other ways to keep learning: Podcasts, Meetups, YouTube, Books etc.

Running

I ran consistently from 2010 until 2020, going from never having run (hated it!) to running several half-marathons. I ran in Hanoi, admittedly on a treadmill because it was too dangerous to run on the road/footpath thanks to traffic and other obstacles. I was doing fast 5 kms then, like in under 30 minutes, which was an achievement for a slow runner like me, who was typically back-of-the-pack. I briefly tried again in 2021, and would have continued, but Bella died and there went my motivation. I walk a lot because I still don’t have a car, and I’ve lost a lot of weight (thank you Michael Mosely) and recently ran for the bus… and was hardly out of breath. Maybe it’s almost time to start running again…

About the #12Essays2024 Challenge

I haven’t given my blog much love or attention over the last couple of years. I wasn’t in the headspace to write, at least not the personal essays I’m known for. But in the words of George Costanza: I’m back, baby. I’ve made a commitment to write one essay a month in 2024 — a slimmed down version of the #26Essays2017 challenge I set for myself in the first year I was in Vietnam. I will be experimenting with structure and form, so you might see some weird stuff. Please stick with me. Some essays will be short, and others will be split into parts because they are long. Maybe I’ll end up publishing them into a collection. Who knows?

Image credit: Erika Varga from Pixabay