DAY 226: Braving bongos

14 Apr

THERE are few sounds that instil a sense of dread in an urbane sophisticate like a bongo drum.

It rings nightly through the festival campsites and squat parties of one’s youth, as insistent as gurning teeth. It mocks your inability to sleep, and taunts you that somewhere – just out of thumping distance – lurks an earnest white uni drop-out with a drug stash bigger than yours, drawing in ever-increasing numbers of the sort of people you wouldn’t like, Lord of the Flies-style.

The horror, the horror.

I decide I need to face my fear head on.

The first thing I discover at this African drumming workshop is that not all hand drums are bongos; quite often it might have been a djembe chilling my blood. Bongos originate from Cuba and tend to huddle in twos, while djembes are from West Africa and sit singly on the floor between your legs.

The workshop’s equally split between men and women of all sorts of nationalities, and to my surprise, no one’s sporting a macramed hat, the colours of the Jamaican flag, or dreadlocks. In these hands the djembe takes on a less sinister slant. I think I’ve got drumming all wrong.

For the next hour, we work through four different rhythms, around 20 minutes on each. A couple of regulars get up to dance in the middle of the circle, which is quite awe-inspiring in the case of the dancer from West Africa, and a different matter entirely in the case of the bloke from Elsternwick.

I enjoy the challenge of sticking to my pattern throughout as other drummers go off on tangents, or coming up with my own solo in the middle (it’s okay, they ask me to). By the end of it my hands are on fire, and we should probably hug or something, but I slope out the door to get the tram.

Keeper? Wouldn’t mind trying the dancing. It’s the sort of dancing you usually do when no one’s looking, hence the challenge.

DAY 225: Tai Chi-ing commuters into a rage

13 Apr

“RIDICULE is nothing to be scared of,” said Adam Ant, who should know.

I’m in an extremely central Melbourne precinct with 10 softly-spoken pensioners in sweatshirts, pants and gloves, repulsing the monkey.

And a strange thing happens. Gentle, gentle, I’m feeling so gentle. I’m so used to bowling over pedestrians and skewering my hipbones on the edges of desks, I didn’t know I could feel like this. It’s as though I’m pushing and sculpting treacle instead of air. Warm, lovin’ treacle. I look over at my friend Lou and she’s similarly entranced.

Tai chi is an internal martial art that translates as ‘great extremes boxing’ (it involves ‘yielding and sticking’ to an incoming attack. Maybe this limpet-like tactic repels the attacker into shaking you off). Stay serious, reader – I’m working muscles I never even knew I had as I form magical tigers, snakes and storks with my body, and there’s not an ounce of fat, nor orthopedic shoe, on any of these elderly athletes.

We’re in the middle of a complex leg balancing sequence to a watery Mandarin rendition of Irene Cara’s ‘What A Feeling’ when some huffing bronco in a suit ploughs through the middle of us, scattering old people in his wake. Luckily, I have achieved great mental clarity, so I don’t mind.

Other commuters may smirk, but I know they’re jealous. I’m starting the day parting the wild horse’s mane and they’re … well … they’re not.

Keeper: Definitely going to do this lots. Feel all smooshy.

DAY 224: Getting a gong bath

12 Apr

BACK when I wrote for gentlemen’s mags, some wag in the art department took a break from Photoshopping out ingrown pubes and assigned us all with superhero nicknames. Mine was Nicotina Stains, a mantle I accepted with some resignation.

Times have changed; I’m an upwardly mobile woman in her thirties with new teeth and a born-again liver, and I need a persona more befitting of a gracious lady.

Meeting Kimilla, a kundalini yoga teacher who wafts into the room dressed head to toe in radiant white, just reinforces this notion. Having grown up with a hippy mother in Angourie (“heaven on earth”) outside Byron Bay, she’s practiced yoga from a young age and has gone on to learn from top yogis from across India. Unsurprisingly, she exudes calm.

Kundalini yoga was once the exclusive practice of royalty, before Yogi Bhajan (the master of ‘tantric energy’) brought it to the West in 1969. One of Kimilla’s specialties is gong healing, so she agrees to run me through an abbreviated session.

We sit in the lotus position while Kimilla talks me through some breathing and meditation, asking that I consider what my intention is. I’m supposed to focus on this intention throughout the gong bath, but I’m put on the spot, so I come up with the epically lame “to be good”.

That sorted, I lie flat on my back under a sheet while Kimilla stands at my feet and rhythmically bongs a 28-inch symphonic gong so that the sound waves shimmer and recede like the surf. It’s incredibly loud; I find myself worrying about the neighbours. The gong, Kimilla tells me, aligns both the planets and the chakras and is infused with the spirit of the elephant god, Lord Ganesha – the remover of obstacles. I’m unsure, even after an explanation, of how the planets are aligning as a result of the activity in this room on Brunswick Street (I hope I’m not fucking anything up for the rest of you), but my chakras are feeling ace, so I let it through to the keeper.

I remember my intention, and try to imagine a bunch of typically vexed people in my life looking delighted with me. Kimilla tells me to rub first my hands and then feet together, to stimulate the nerve endings, and cup the base of my palms over my eyes sockets. She stands in front of me and crowns her hands on my head, asking me to imagine a gold sphere inside me, and shimmering gold around me. And then we’re done, and I’m feeling good. I’ve always had a thing for hands on heads, though – I used to have a terrible crush on the vicar.

In yoga classes I always find that my head says deliberately outrageous things to wind me up (I can’t even repeat them) when I’m supposed to be focused, but there are plenty of others – others with sinewy limbs and an omnipresent serenity – who credit yoga with changing their lives. So why isn’t it like that for everyone?

“It’s a living philosophy,” Kimilla concludes. “The ‘yoga class’ isn’t at all what yoga is about. It’s about living in alignment with your truth, fulfilling your destiny, living in love and happiness.”

In other words, you get out what you put in.

Read more of Kimilla’s philosophies here: www.kimilla.blogspot.com

DAY 223: Pampering the shit out of my face

11 Apr

Now 90 per cent more pink.

CONTINUING my quest to become a real girl, I clatter off to a random make-up artist in Myer and bid her to do as she will.

Suzi eagerly sets about turning my face into an approximation of hers, layering on primer, foundation, concealer, three or four eye shadows, tinted eyebrow wax, mascara, bronzer, blush, lip pencil, pink lipstick and lipgloss. I do wear make-up every day, but that’s 10 products and 30 minutes more than I’m accustomed to.

A French artiste called André (actually, I can’t remember his name, but that’ll do) hovers the whole time, giving a running commentary on what Suzi’s doing and snatching brushes out of her tiny hands, replacing them with what he’d use if he was her. He laments my eyebrows, which are admittedly in need of a bit of a trim, practically wringing his hands in agitation.

I manage to block him out when Suzi does my eyes, as it’s very soothing. I get to pondering the word ‘pamper’ and how it’s become a ‘you deserve it’ kind of marketing tool aimed at the privileged. Golden goddess pamper pack. Pamper yourself stupid this pampering Pamperday. It’s a curious sounding word, so I look it up when I regain the use of my iPhone hand:

‘Pampe’ can be traced back to ancient religious manuscripts. As in: ‘Thus the devil fareth with men and wommen; First, he stirith hem to pappe and pampe her fleisch, desyrynge delicous metis and drynkis.’

Steady thyself!

Then there’s the Bavarian word, ‘pampfen’, meaning ‘to cram oneself with pap or broth’.

Mmm.

“Are you Dutch?” André interrupts my reverie. “You have very Dutch features: dark skin and green eyes.”

I’m unable to enquire as to whether he’s had a recent knock to the head with his hair straighteners, as Suzi is slicking something like Dunkin’ Donuts glaze on my mouth.

Now all I need to do is write a crime novel called Midnight’s Daughter and this can be the author photo on the jacket.

Glacial pink gloss, I venture as I peer in the mirror, is not appropriate for a 36-year-old woman. Suzi disagrees, and André gasps that it’s perfectly acceptable for a “woman of your age”. In fact, he reckons, I might even try mature modelling work.

“What, in a catalogue?” I quip.

“Yes,” he agrees earnestly. “Cheap catalogues are where the money is.”

Picture me flouncing out of Myer, spitting hair out of my lip gloss.

Keeper? Secretly enjoyed it.

DAY 222: Flagellating myself

10 Apr

DOING this blog, I’ve all but lost the gentle art of self-flagellation. Once upon a time I’d muse lengthily on the bleak implications of my existence, but these days I’m too busy.

I’m in a terrible mood today, though, and I reckon I’ve karmically passed on that feeling of being shat on from a great height; although to my credit I haven’t actually shat on anyone’s desk from a great height in return.

Apart from general fumings, I’m deeply facially unpleasant to the man next to me on the train home, who merely wants to get up three minutes earlier than necessary so that he can stand in a queue for the door. There’s no cause to slam down Dave Graney’s autobiography and cross my arms, infusing the poor chap with black molecules of bad juju as he wends his way, inch by inch, down the crazy carpet.

So to avoid getting karma back again twice as hard, I’m going to flagellate myself with a bunch of sticks and mortify the deeds of my flesh. Pip karma at the post, as it were.

I’m not Catholic, so I only feel bog standard guilt, but still it seems fitting to follow the path of rogue Catholics who enjoyed a good flogging. I don’t want leaves all over my house, so I’ve fashioned a handbag-sized ‘birch’ rod I can take out with me tomorrow. Now I can give myself a smart thrash on the wrist whenever I come over all self-righteous.

You put something down for a second 'round here.

 

Keeper? Am available for flagellatings.

DAY 221: Cracking a wishbone

9 Apr

HELEN won the break, which is fair enough as it was her chicken.

Keeper? Ultimately unsatisfying. Hold tight, I reckon there’ll be exciting stuff happening soon.

DAY 220: Baking bread

8 Apr

“DON’T blame me if this doesn’t work out,” says Clare, who said the same thing about my marriage, but I’ve let bygones be bygones.

Clare reads out bread-baking instructions over the phone and I slap a loaf together in real time. I add magic ingredients caraway seeds and Weetabix (that’s English for Weet-Bix) for a special touch. It turns out really good, and I think taking it out too early makes it even more gummy and tasty.

This lack of trust by my friends in my domestic skills is shocking though, because today I’ve darned shorts, hoovered the rug, arranged the pantry with Tupperware boxes, paired my socks and baked a loaf – all without incident. If somebody could teach me how to make a lasagne, I reckon I’ve got everything covered.

Keeper? Curiously, this all felt really satisfying. My house smells of scented candles, chai tea and freshly baked bread, instead of rabbit mess.

DAY 219: Naming Bob

7 Apr

Bob being picked.

BOB is not my dog, but I’m determined to name him. We had to venture deep into Creepsville country to get the hound, and he guffed eight times on my lap on the journey home. I’m owed this. I need to act fast, before Zo’s kids try and name him.

I reckon Bob looks like a Bob, and I say so. “He can be ‘Robert’ when he misbehaves,” I point out. I can tell Zo’s coming around, because I keep dropping Bob’s name into conversation all the way home until she starts doing it too. We’re in!

I was confused by Bob’s teats, but apparently boys have them too. Look – there’s his doodle on the left.

You say it with a little pause, Blackadder style: “…Bob.”

Keeper? Yes. I would like to name someone’s firstborn next.

DAY 218: Submitting to Boars and Whores

6 Apr


THE moment I clapped eyes on Boars and Whores magazine (not its real name, but pretty close) in a servo in rural NSW, I knew I had to be in it, somehow.

It’s all blokes in camos and night goggles, girls in blood-stained bikinis, and boars with their jaws propped open by sticks. Compelling stuff.

While my mate Stacey is determined I go to a ‘Dog a Hog’ gathering and enter the wet T-shirt competition, I’m hesitant. I need to stay true to myself when hunting down new a new experience (AND SLITTING ITS THROAT), and I like animals. My fundraising efforts for the RSPCA as a child were of what you might call fanatical proportions; I once stood up knock-kneed in school assembly and proposed we test cosmetics on prisoners; and if I hadn’t discovered booze and rock’n’roll and selfish things like that, I’d probably have had an illustrious career breaking into labs and liberating things from cages.

However, Boars and Whores does have a kiddy section, whereby chips off the old block can just send in their artistic impressions of Mum lying atop a freshly slayed grunter in her smalls, or Dad brandishing a Remington and a stubby. That can’t hurt to join in.

A kiddy-wink's pic in the latest issue.

I draw my own depiction of a boar hunt and send it in for consideration. I’ll let you know how I go.

My effort.

Keeper? Yes, I think I will submit more rubbish to magazines.

DAY 217: Automatic writing. REDRUM! REDRUM!

5 Apr

Back to the age of licking batteries (try it before you knock it) and highly flammable pajamas. Cool.

IF you’re right-handed and you try writing with your left hand, you supposedly access the right hemisphere of the brain – that which is more emotional, creative and chaotic.

“Using your non-dominant hand is a direct link to that portion of your ‘self’; without filtering it through your logical/analytical left brain,” says some website or other I can’t find now, probably because my right hemisphere has just declared anarchy.

To find out what my ‘self’ has to say, I decide to start with “my name is Jenny” and then just see what happens.

I get unnerved by the sight of my handwriting as a six-year-old before I even reach the end of the second word. Asking myself questions like, “What do I like?” and “What do I want to be?” brings back immediate answers, worries and wishes from that age, and surprise that someone wants to know. I can clearly picture everything in my bedroom. It’s not to a Twilight Zone extent, but it is like I’ve zeroed in on the inner child, which is going unchecked. Usually it’ll be silenced by the adult side with a wry chuckle or patronising putdown, but now it’s flying under the radar.

Whether it’s the right hemisphere talking or just memories triggered by the sight of my handwriting, I couldn’t say, but it feels like a bit of a Pandora’s box, so I stop. Shaddap, kid.

By the way, if you’re bored, here’s a quiz that determines whether you’re right- or left-brain dominated. If right, you are probably a new-ager. If left, you are probably a cold fish. I think I was about 90 per cent right-brain, but since the left-brain’s good at maths, I might be wrong.

Keeper? Might have another go. Maybe I could find out where I put my ET keyring.

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →