Lana — Page 27

Alone with your thoughts… How do you do it?

September 16, 2013 by Lana 5 Comments

Spending twelve hours on a plane is a very long time. Especially if that twelve hours is preceded by another nine hour flight.

That 21 hours seems even longer if you are the kind of person who cannot sleep sitting up and cannot afford to fly business class

It’s a funny, and extremely rare, thing to have so much time with so little to do and no real expectation other than getting to your destination. There are so many movies that you can watch (just one in my case – flying just magnifies what a fussy person I am when it comes to film choices) , so much candy crush you can play and so long that you can stare at the flight path wishing it forward before you’re forced to just sit with yourself for a while and completely entertain your own thoughts.

The inside of my brain is messy and busy and very full. There’s a lot of noise when so many thoughts are fighting to be heard. Some of them are loud and forceful and I worry that they’re going to come out unfiltered (believe me you want my thoughts filtered before they go out.) Some of them are anxious and scared, racing and obsessing but some of them are calm and measured. Some of them are happy and grateful, some of them are over the top with excitement over the impending holiday, some persistent ones are obsessed with my weight (sad truth) and some of them are still in South Africa with my father.
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At times like these I want to write about the huge journey my head has been on in the past. A journey that was less peaceful than this physical one but whose emotional destination was ultimately the best place I’ve ever visited but it seems somehow a bit wanky and misplaced to do it here and now. Misplaced because the only reason I want to write about that past journey is to say how grateful I am for where I am now and wanky because I don’t know many people who haven’t had to wrestle demons in their heads,

But for right now I’m going to leave that journey in the past and concentrate on how grateful I am to be sitting on a plane with my husband and son asleep at my side as I sit with my thoughts and what seems like all the time in the world and instead of being only scared or anxious I also feel relaxed and excited. With just a little neurosis to keep me in check.

How do you deal with time alone with just your thoughts to keep you entertained ?

Filed Under: Featured, My Life

Why is shopping so much fun when you are not at home?

September 13, 2013 by Lana 2 Comments

I can’t even begin to tell you how much time I spent reading the ads in the comics when I was a little girl. Hours would go past as I looked through the small black and white coupon redemption ads imagining myself snacking on Hostess Twinkies with my x-ray vision glasses perched on the end of my nose while tending to my family of sea monkeys who were jumping through hoops outside their castle.

All those novelty toys looked so amazing probably because I never got to see the real thing and feel the invariable disappointment of receiving shrimp brine instead of sea monkeys and novelty plastic instead of x-ray glasses.

Growing up in a country with sanctions imposed on it for it’s horrific apartheid activity meant that we didn’t get to see a lot of imported products in our department store or supermarket aisles. In my mind “overseas” became the land of milk and honey or rather Sea Monkeys and Magic Sand and I imagined giant toy stores of miraculous product and proportion. With a huge emphasis on Fisher Price toys and bubble gum.

When my parents traveled they would bring us home gifts that seemed so exotic and unique – like writing paper and matching envelopes of Raggedy Anne and Andy (one of my fondest gift memories), dolls that came in tissue boxes and watches that had lights behind them – okay it was in the 1970’s.

Everything from “overseas” was tinged with novelty and awesome.

And then many, many, many years passed, sanctions were lifted and I came to live in Australia. For a while I was in awe of the supermarkets because everything was different and exciting. And then time passed and it all just became tedious shopping for groceries.

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Many time I have made the mistake of shopping myself ragged while overseas and then coming home with a worrying amount of shameful consumerism and bags full of stuff that looked better in its native countries.

When I am on holiday I can spend hours browsing through shops and marveling at every item on the shelf while at home I hate shopping with an intensity that others reserve for politicians. But yesterday I had to get a few things before we go overseas this weekend and I had a bit of time on my hands. I got past my initial hatred of being inside a shopping centre and tried to recall the wonder I felt at shopping overseas. And the most revelatory thing for me was how much STUFF there is on the shelves right here at home.

I’ve never noticed the electronic eyelash curlers or the gimmicks and gadgets, the huge range of stationery that would have me salivating if I had caught a plane to get to the shop where it was stocked.

I cannot believe that there is anything that I am going to see overseas that I can’t find in Australia. Other than the different cultures of course, which are very hard to buy and package. So, hopefully this holiday I will stay out of the shops and try to fill up on experiences instead.

If my husband is reading this I hope he realises I am fully entitled to change my mind as soon as we hit duty free. Also none of this counts for clothing purchases.

Filed Under: Featured, My Life Tagged With: travel

I’d rather my son watch this ad for beer than prime time TV

September 10, 2013 by Lana 19 Comments

I admit to still feeling a little “assaulted” by watching the first 20 minutes of The Bachelor on Sunday night. There were so many signs I shouldn’t have even given it a chance so I’m not sure how I came to lying in bed and watching it with my son

The whole premise of the show is a bit hideous. 25 conventionally attractive, hand-selected woman demean themselves to get the attention of a man they don’t know while fighting off other women in a contest to see who can lose their dignity first.

My husband actually thought I was joking when I left the room telling him I wanted to watch these woman fight over a man they might marry after meeting him on TV. I think I may have even heard him asking whether I had a temperature or was just feeling unwell.

Plus I don’t believe in chiropractors. Tim, the bachelor is no exception

But I am a soldier and I persevered because there was some element of car crash watching that I couldn’t escape from. For 20 minutes I watched. I sent about 20 flabbergasted tweets and then spent the next 20 minutes showing my son positive female role models and explaining to him that it’s not the way that women behave in real life and nor should they be portrayed like that.

I may have even tried to resort to some voodoo type techniques to erase his memory of what I had subjected him to. There was a lot I had to undo, it wasn’t just the visual impact of 25 women who all looked ageless due to the fact that their faces didn’t move, 25 women who seemed to have created their own hole in the ozone because of the amount of hair spray they had used and who could not walk in the shoes they had chosen to impress Tim with.
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I felt like I had to impress upon my son that all this plastic and fakery was not important. That people should be valued and loved for who they are not just what they look like and that love is not something you find through competition.

It was time to slash a few stereotypes and what better way to do that than a beer commercial. No seriously. Watch this. I don’t need to say another word

Who would have ever thought that I would rather my son watch an ad for beer over a bit of “family prime time TV”?

Well done Guinness, well done

Filed Under: Current Affairs, Featured Tagged With: current affairs

So detached but so attached

September 9, 2013 by Lana 12 Comments

My heart on the left and my body on the right

The last week has been surreal. My body’s been doing its thing in Australia but it’s been without my heart. My heart is in South Africa, specifically in a hospital ward in Johannesburg where my father is recovering from open heart surgery.

In one way it’s a huge (albeit very selfish) relief not to be there and see my father, the strongest man in the world, with hundreds of tubes attached to him. We aren’t there now mainly because my dad and step-mom think we shouldn’t be right now. As soon as they give the word we will be. I’m not sure your eyes can ever erase the image of a person you love fighting to breathe. I know I can still see my baby on his ventilator as a newborn and he’s 12 and perfectly healthy now. Every time I speak to my step-mother I can hear just how hard it is for her to see the man she loves lying helpless on a bed, his body struggling to heal itself (with the aid of brilliant modern medicine).

And it seems so wrong to be so far away. So detached while still feeling so attached. It seems wrong for the world to be carrying on as normal while my father struggles to recover.

It feels like the sun shouldn’t be shining.
I should not be shopping or drinking coffee with friends or wasting my time on the internet.
I should not be counting down the days till we go to Europe.
I should not be sad about election results which ultimately are not going to change MY life

It feels wrong that everyone is carrying on oblivious to the fact that my father is in intensive care and my step-mother is spending her every waking moment taking care of her husband and my father while we carry on as if everything is the same.
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And the distance between us is highlighted by the fact that everything IS the same.

Every day I go about my day thousands of kilometres away from my dad and step-mom. Their nights are my days and their days are my nights.

I don’t know what they’re doing or thinking about the little stuff. The stuff that’s so important when you are family that love each other.

They don’t eat our alphabet dinners or get to come over for a meal once a week with the rest of the family and my dad doesn’t get to make ridiculous dad jokes in person – and believe me he is spectacularly good at dad jokes.

This living apart from people you love thing is the pits – when the person on one side of the world is sick, it’s just fucking awful.

Thank you for listening to me rant. And dad, if you ever read this please excuse me for swearing.

Filed Under: Featured, My Life Tagged With: family

It’s over

September 8, 2013 by Lana 30 Comments

The elections are over and I have no words, so I’ll use images instead.

I am sad about the results

Worried about them even

Because I remember these words from Tony Abbott

and these

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And I HATE the fact that they can’t remember this

I’m horrified that we have our own “George Bush”

But it’s done and it’s up to all of us to make the next three years count. I strongly recommend you read this brilliant column from Andrew P Street and

Filed Under: Current Affairs, Featured Tagged With: current affairs

Just what I needed. I think you need it to

September 6, 2013 by Lana 12 Comments

It’s been a bit of a hideous week for me with my dad having surgery and me having 24 people over for dinner. Well having the people over for dinner wasn’t bad but preparing for it and cleaning up afterwards was not as much fun.

I haven’t been sleeping much and I haven’t been feeling very, er light. But at about 4am this morning (I really could not sleep) I found this video and what do you know – it did make me feel a little lighter for a few minutes. In fact I keep singing it and singing is good for the soul*.

Performed by Norwegian comedy act YLVIS it’s a little Old MacDonald and a little pop music. It’s also a little catchy so beware.

Elephant goes toot may be my favourite line.
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*I may also feel a lot lighter because my dad has pushed through his surgery and last night had his breathing tube removed and is doing it all on his own. YEEHA!

Filed Under: Featured, Funny Tagged With: funny

If I have wronged you…

September 4, 2013 by Lana 14 Comments

Right now Jewish people all over the world are preparing to celebrate the Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashana) which falls over the next two days.

The Jewish New Year celebrations are nothing like traditional New Year’s shenanigans. There are no huge parties but there are two nights of ginormous dinners and, if you are really religious, or observant or lucky, you’re likely to get two days of huge lunches as well. There are no new year resolutions but there are plenty of past year reflections, there are no big parties of drunken revelers but families and friends share their huge meals together. There are no fireworks but there is a lot of praying time should you wish to join in.

I am not at all religious, in fact I’d say I’m not much of a believer, but I am Jewish.

It’s not a religious thing, it’s not even ideological but it is traditional and cultural. While the Jewish New Year is a very religious holiday (it marks the anniversary of the creation of Adam and Eve and is also the anniversary of man’s first sin and his repentance thereof) it’s the customs rather than the prayer and religion that really get me.

One of the most important parts of preparing for Rosh Hashana is to ask for forgiveness from anyone you may have wronged during the previous year. Similarly, we are encouraged to be quick to forgive those who have wronged us.

Jewish religion teaches that Rosh Hashana is the Day of Judgment. On Rosh Hashanah, God is said to inscribe the fate of every person for the upcoming year in the Book of Life or the Book of Death. The verdict is not final until Yom Kippur.
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Rosh Hashanah marks the beginning of the Ten Days of Awe or Repentance (the days between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur), during which we reflect upon our actions over the past year and seek forgiveness for our transgressions in hopes of influencing God’s final judgment.

I don’t believe in a vengeful or angry God and I really don’t believe that if a God existed they would be sitting around and judging us for swearing or eating the wrong foods or coveting our neighbour’s possessions or some such thing while people are dying in Syria or Darfur or Afghanistan or anywhere else for that matter. I don’t believe in a God that would judge me for my actions while allowing children to starve and be abused. I don’t believe in a God that would protect some people and not others but I love the idea of man making amends with his fellow man. I love the fact that even if we let it go for far too long there is a time, once a year ,when we are reminded to think about our actions and how they have affected other people.

I love the fact that tonight and tomorrow night I will have reason to sit with all my family even if it means I have to cook for 26 people tomorrow night. I love the fact that we will be eating round sweet foods (cake!) to symbolise a round and sweet year, I love that we have these continued opportunities to be together and to remember what really counts. Of course at our table all our thoughts will be with my father.

Wishing you a Shana Tova (happy new year) and if I have wronged you this year I am truly sorry.

Filed Under: Current Affairs, Featured Tagged With: family

The strongest man in the world

September 1, 2013 by Lana 16 Comments

My son and the strongest man in the world

“The strongest man in the world”

That’s been my fathers line ever since I can remember. For 45 years every time I’ve asked my father how he is, its been the same response given in the same tone of voice. The strongest man in the world.

My father is not the type of man that suffers from “man flu”. In fact if he’s ever been sick with a real cold or flu, he’d just cough, sneeze and say “I’m the strongest man in the world.” Mind you it didn’t stop him from carrying around the neatest selection of Panadol, cold and flu tablets and antacids in his car that you’ve ever seen. But that was organisational rather than medicinal. My dad is rather pedantic, just like his youngest daughter (that would be me).

Last night he called me from his home in South Africa. How are you?” I said
“Strongest man in the world” he replied.

But what followed next revealed the chasm of distance, the true heartbreak of living in a different country from the strongest man in the world.

We hadn’t been there to see that he was feeling breathless, we hadn’t chatted to him about or even known to ask him what the doctor said when he went for a check up. We hadn’t anxiously awaited the results of his angiogram. We just heard the end result – he’s having bypass surgery this week.
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Mentally I am already packing my bags to go see him, thinking of how I can organise everything at home to be with him. Should I be leaving my mother and sister for the Jewish New Year this week or should I be flying on the first plane to South Africa?

He’s the strongest man in the world, my dad. He says we shouldn’t worry and I’m sure that flying to see him in hospital is not ideal because I know he never wants me to see him weak and vulnerable. He never even wants to tell me when he’s sick. I am sure if it wasn’t for his wife he wouldn’t have even “worried” us with this upcoming surgery. He wants us to believe he’s the strongest man in the world and he would rather I be there when we can actually spend some time together. Not when he’s lying recovering from open heart surgery. Who ever thought a sentence could be so hard to write?

And I feel immediately like we don’t spend enough time together and I feel the huge distance between us. He knows how much I love him and I know that I’m his favourite – just like my sisters believe they are his favourite (even though I’m right and they’re not). I feel the pain of not having the every day with him, the quick catch-ups, the weekly dinners, the little things.

I know he cries when he gets off the phone and I have told him about the amazing things Little Pencil has been doing and he knows that my child is growing up without his physical presence in his life. I know that I need to be a better daughter to him – that telling him I love him once a week over the phone isn’t enough. And I feel the distance that I blame for stopping me.

Today everything made me think of him, the clothes in the shops, the food on my plate, the music on the radio, the tears of my sister, the voice of my son. My father seemed to be everywhere, but he was nowhere I could be with him today.

He doesn’t even know it’s Fathers Day in Australia today. He just happened to choose the right time to remind me how grateful I am for the father that he is and how much I miss him.

Now if we can just get through this week because it’s only 150 days before we celebrate his next birthday TOGETHER in Australia.

Filed Under: Featured, My Life Tagged With: family

I didn’t even know you could do this to yourself at home. In 20 minutes

August 29, 2013 by Lana 19 Comments

My problem was that I trusted a colourist.

If you know me at all you’ll know that I’m the kind of person who thinks a hairdresser is the person at the salon that does all the “stuff” to your hair. You know, like cutting and coloring and blow drying and in some unfortunate cases, thinking back to the 80’s, the perming. Then I went to a very swanky hairdresser and was informed that the hairdresser was the cutter, although I think he may have called himself a “stylist”. If I wanted colour I needed to talk to the colourist.

As it so happened I didn’t want colour per se but mostly I didn’t want the colour grey.

The colourist loved the “tones” of my hairs that weren’t grey and, in an act that made me really appreciate colourist integrity, told me I shouldn’t alter the colour of my hair at all. Apparently I was very lucky to be “blessed with natural highlights.” Given that grey was the predominant hue of these highlights I wasn’t that sure I agreed with him. But he was convincing and so by mistake I listened to him.

He urged me to go to the supermarket, again I was happy with his integrity, and buy a colour shampoo. He said that if I bought a shade or two lighter than my hair I would cover the greys but not alter the actual colour of my hair. Sorted.

I waited about a year and then did exactly that.

I used a filter to protect you from the orange shock (and make my skin look good) But you can see how light my hair is …..that’s NOT a trick

I chose a lovely ash blonde because that is definitely lighter than my hair. I treated the actual colouring process with scant regard because after all, all that I was doing was covering greys.

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Nobody warned me that you could lighten your hair with a colour shampoo. In fact, on the contrary, people told me that only bleach could strip away colour and result in lighter hair.

Now I have caramel hair. It is almost the same colour as my dog which looks really beautiful on dog. Not as beautiful on 45-year old woman with fair skin and freckles.

But worse. The hair along the top of my head is REALLY caramel – like some kind of cheap, dodgy balyage gone wrong. And the hair at my temples is untouched, meaning that it’s grey.

I tried to convince myself that it wasn’t too bad and in fact it wasn’t even that different, surely I was just being over critical. And then I went out and saw people that I know.

My hair is caramel verging on orange with prominent grey streaks. There is no denying it.

Nice.

At least hair grows. A a sentence I must have repeated to myself about 100 times an hour (and heard about 100 times from other people).

Filed Under: Featured, My Life Tagged With: beauty, funny

Reading through rose-coloured glasses

August 28, 2013 by Lana 21 Comments

The very first book that I ever read to my child was The Enchanted Forest by Enid Blyton. Granted he was three days old and two months premature so he probably wasn’t riveted by the land at the top of the Faraway Tree. He was focusing on important things like learning to breathe by himself and growing eyebrows.

But I read happily. And repeatedly. Let’s be honest not only was the sound of my voice meant to be beneficial to our bonding (and it was the only contact we were allowed) but I had really been looking forward to rereading those books since I finished them at about age ten.

Like many other people of my generation I grew up with Enid Blyton: Mr Pink Whistle, Noddy, The Wishing Chair, The Naughtiest Girl, The St Clare’s series, The Circus series and of course The Famous Five. And I tried to make my son grow up with the same memories by reading him all these books, while I still had a say.

Wherever you stand on the divide as to whether Enid Blyton was a “good” writer, a homophobe or a xenophobe there can be little denial of the pure escape that she offered in the pages of her books. Especially when looked at simplistically – as a child listening to a story, not as an adult looking for symbolism and classical literature.

No parents, lots of adventure and a guaranteed happy ending. The children in her books were responsible, mature and extremely industrious characters. They could catch thieves with no legal intervention, they could travel to far away lands and still be home in time for dinner, they could get through the entire school holidays without ever nagging their parents. And they never seemed to need toys, in fact I can barely even remember the characters spending any time indoors let alone at home.

Sufficeth it to say that as soon as he could make himself understood my son made it clear that Enid Blyton was not his choice of bedtime reading. It’s a funny thing how kids can sense the time setting of a book just by the opening lines. It’s also very funny (to them) that she uses the names Dick and Fanny. Actually now that I am older it’s also a little bit funny to me.

So instead of reading Enid Blyton we read Rony Roy, Dov Piley and Jeremy Strong, H Larry and Paul Jennings and many hundreds of others. We read for so long that we even graduated to people like Anthony Horowitz and JK Rowling. Reading aloud was part of our bedtime routine right until he started reading better than I did and was getting lost in books himself.
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Yesterday I read a report outlining the fact that many parents were no longer reading to their children at bedtime. Apparently two-thirds of parents surveyed read to their kids less than once a week by the time they turn five.

News reports

Research, to be released today, shows nationwide 83 per cent of parents with children aged between one and four read to them at least once a week. It’s a different story once youngsters start school, when the figure drops to 36 per cent.

I know I only have one child and the HUGE luxury of time and resources. I also acknowledge that it’s much easier to look back at parts of your life that have long passed with rose tinted glasses and more than a hint of “wasn’t life perfect then?” but Lord I loved reading to my son.

I loved rediscovering the stories of my youth (before my son stopped me), I loved seeing the world through the eyes of a child, I loved my son lying next to me listening to my voice while his mind whirred and buzzed with the lines of something make believe. Of course I loved it when we moved on from reading “picture books” repeatedly. The same one every single night. Again and again.

There is no wrong way or right way to parent your child, as long as you love them, so I am not saying that reading to my child made me a good mother (loving him did that) but I can’t imagine not having had that time together. I only wish I had been more persuasive with the Magic Faraway Tree – he would have bloody loved Upside Down Land.

Did you read to your kids? Are you still reading? Loving or loathing it?

Filed Under: Current Affairs, Featured, Parenting Tagged With: parenting