I’ve always enjoyed getting a massage every few months, but I’ve never been consistent with which therapist I saw. That changed last year after my amputation. With all the physical changes happening, I realized I needed a therapist who could really understand my body and its unique needs.
Luckily, I discovered a skilled massage therapist right in my apartment building! He has his own practice in the city, and after a chance encounter, I started seeing him regularly.
It’s been invaluable having someone monitor the changes in my body – and there have been a lot! Physiotherapy and the amputation itself have affected how my muscles and limbs feel.
For the first few months, there was some hesitation around how much pressure my residual limb could handle. That’s definitely evolved. I’ve gained strength, my wound has healed, and I can tolerate – and benefit from – deeper pressure.
Seeing him regularly has allowed my therapist to adapt his techniques as my body has changed.
Yesterday, though, I had an appointment with one of his colleagues. It was a good reminder that not every therapist has experience with amputees. I had to explain that pressure on my residual limb is actually beneficial, helping with things like phantom pain and wound healing.
It’s been interesting to observe how my needs have changed. I can take more pressure now, and I even encourage the therapist to be a bit firmer. I also appreciate being able to discuss how the rest of my body is compensating for the amputation.
It seems there’s not much information available about massage therapy specifically for amputees beyond addressing residual limb pain. It’s definitely an area ripe for exploration, and I’m curious to see how my body continues to respond in the coming months.
“How’s it going for you at the moment?”, a friend asked me, as we sat under a tree in Victoria Park, and waited for speeches at today’s marriage equality rally. The last time I’d seen her was at the last marriage equality rally I’d attended, about a month ago.
She’s a heterosexual woman with a large number of friends, as well as a large number of clients (professionally) in the LGBTQI community. I was so pleased to see her at today’s march and rally, as she and many, many others recognise, “this is not just a gay issue”.
“To be honest, I’m a bit over it”, I told her, as we reflected on the national “debate” currently underway, which we both agreed had allowed some people to say things which were hurtful and untrue, things they wouldn’t have said previously, and things which wouldn’t ordinarily have been reported in the media. “I just wish it was over so life could go back to normal…”, she said.
It also made me reflect on my recent visit to Spain. Spain is a seriously “Catholic” country, with churches everywhere, a reasonably high rate of church attendance and belief, and yet, it was not uncommon to see same sex couples expressing affection in public. Wikipedia tells me Spain was…
…the third country in the world to allow same-sex couples to marry across the entire country, after the Netherlands and Belgium, and 17 days ahead of the right being extended across all of Canada.
For a country that was once a world leader on human rights (eg: first country to allow women to vote in a national election) it makes me sad so many other countries have preceded Australia on this issue.
And it makes me sad to see our lives “debated” in the way they have, and for the return of homophobic commentary and abuse. In fact, as I made my way to the last rally, I was called a “faggot” by some random member of the public. I was wearing an equality t-shirt, and as I heard the word yelled out at me, I didn’t look sideways. But still the word “hurt” and it brought back many painful memories.
“Hopefully it’ll be over soon”, I told my friend, adding “and of course there are plans for a big party on Oxford Street on the night of November 15, the day of the announcement”. “See you there”, she said.
It’s mid-afternoon and I’m sitting at the kitchen table at Pat and Jack’s place in Lismore. Pat is sitting on the back verandah making her way through one of those “word game” books, and Jack is having a mid-afternoon nap on the couch. Pretty soon, we’ll be watching “The Chase” on Prime 7. This is a familiar routine for 2021, as I spent a fair amount of the year based in Lismore.
Since about the age of 18/19, I’ve been living away from Lismore. During my university years in Brisbane I was often back (most weekends, in fact). And then when I began pursuing my career in other parts of Australia, there was a long period of time where I only made it home once a year.
More recently I’ve tried to make it back two or three times each year, but it has been, generally speaking, only for a week at a time.
That all changed this year when I came home for a couple of weeks. Nancy had been ill for quite some time, and died in June, aged 75.
Nancy Ann Keaton (O’Brien)
I’d always planned to spend a couple of weeks here, helping out with various family activities. But then the COVID-lockdown hit Sydney. Faced with a choice of returning to Sydney, or staying here, I chose the latter.
A few weeks later, I didn’t have much choice, as Lismore, too, was forced into a lockdown. There was a period of time when people from Sydney weren’t allowed to travel to Regional NSW and vice-versa.
And so I settled fully back into the front bedroom of Pat and Jack’s place for both work and home. Pat even found an old desk which I could use (with a 1980’s map of the world featuring many countries which no longer exist). And suddenly, it was almost four months later!
I settled into a routine of doing family errands, picking up a daily coffee at the nearby coffee shop, and then at night, after dinner, we would watch Neighbours, Home & Away and NCIS. Jack used to fall asleep during NCIS. I really loved being back as part of my family on a more permanent basis, and also re-discovering my home town more as a “local” than as a “visitor”.
Travelling down the Wilson’s River, August 2021
Checking out the public art in Lismore
As the lockdowns began to lift, there was a window of opportunity for me to return home, which I did and settled back into life in Sydney.
“I’m sad that you’re going because I feel like we’ve just got to know you again properly”, Jack said to me, as I was farewelled at Ballina Airport a few months ago. It’s something which touched me then, and touches me still, a few months later.
As they’re both in the 70s/80s now, I have really treasured the opportunity to have been back with them, and spent some time (both quality and quantity) with them. In the midst of an otherwise terrible year for the world, I am truly grateful for the opportunity this year has unexpectedly provided us.
Family at Christmas
Aside from that, it’s been a fairly regular kind of year.
In January, I travelled to Canberra and Wagga, and then in October, Sue and I visited the Snowy Mountains.
Paddy’s Falls at Tumbarumba
Also this year, I participated in Mardi Gras, along with my awesome colleagues from ABC Pride, the staff-led diversity group.
And here I am, back in Lismore for New Years Eve. A few weeks ago I bought a ticket for the annual “Tropical Fruits Party” being held at Lismore Showground. At this stage (mid-afternoon), I’ve decided to stay home. Even though it’s a mostly outdoors event, I’m still worried about COVID. It’s not so much contracting COVID (I’m double-vaxxed), it’s the chance I could pass it on to others.
As we end the year, the world still seems pretty F$%%ed.
My niece in Brisbane asked a question on Facebook yesterday about whether she could fly in Queensland without being double-vaxxed. I stopped myself from commenting. The other day I learned my nephew “doesn’t believe in vaccination” to which I replied, “Well, he was also the idiot who thought it was a good idea to walk down in the floodwaters to check the power box when the power went off during the 2017 flood”. So much for genetic evolution.
I’m hoping that in 2022, we (as a nation, and as the world), will get out shit together. In some ways, COVID has given the world the opportunity to re-assess our lives, learn some things, and take action towards a better future. Sadly, I’m not seeing much evidence of that.
A few months ago, I was sitting around with some friends and solving the problems of the world, as you do. We all came to a conclusion that maybe we spend too much time reading the papers and not enough time reading the history books. You can learn a lot from history, can’t you? 100 years ago, we’re in the midst of a global pandemic. And we were seeing the rise of right wing nationalism around the world.
As people we seem to have the memories of goldfish, barely able to remember last week, let alone what happened last year or the year before.
Though I’m not much of a fan of Sean Micallef, I liked what he had to say on Twitter the other day : “The PM is keen for us not to look in the rear-view mirror but I think it’s sometimes helpful to check and see what you’ve just run over.”
Seconds after mentioning to a colleague I was going to “Aquascene” on the weekend, I know she was internally “rolling her eyes”. For anyone who is a “local”, “Aquascene” and “Crocodylus” (where they have jumping crocodiles, and an experience where you can swim with crocodiles) must be the “ultimate tourist attractions”. And yeah, why not, “I’m a tourist”, I thought to myself.
“Aquascene” is located on the harbour where you can literally go and “hand-feed fish”. But it’s only at high tide, when fish come up to the water’s edge in search of food. For us, it was an early morning start, as the opening hours were limited to 0800-1000. Despite the early hours, lots and lots of people (from little-ones to grey-nomads, and those of us in between) were happy to oblige. We had a terrific time. The water around my feet was surprisingly warm.
Fish Feeding at Aquascene, Darwin
From there, we caught the bus to the Parap Markets. The coffee alone was worth it. We wandered around, enjoyed the sights, the food, the stalls and the fabulous sounds. Amongst those spotted were former ABC and Channel 9 weather presenter, Monte Dwyer now back in the Territory, it seems, selling travel and adventure books he has written.
We also spotted an eighteen-year-old Darwin musician, Jordan Ravi, performing. He was very good, and we were both convinced he’ll end up one day on Australian Idol or The Voice, or whatever those shows are called these days.
While we enjoyed the awesome coffee at a nearby shop, Sue ordered a hire care for the weekend. Though we hadn’t planned to, we thought this would be a good idea, allowing us to travel a little more broadly.
From there, we caught a bus to the Museum and Art Gallery, so Sue could experience the Cyclone Tracey exhibition. Previously when I’ve visited the exhibition, I was quite upset at entering the darkened room, where they play some of the sounds from the night the cyclone hit Darwin, devastating the city on Christmas Eve/Christmas Day. There’s a warning for former Darwin residents of potential triggering memories as you enter the room. Going into the room with another person made it less upsetting, though the sounds of the strong windows and the corrugated iron scraping along the bitumen remain nonetheless confronting.
The Northern Territory News is (in)famous nationwide for its stories and about crocodiles and its pun headlines. Though I’ve been in Darwin for almost one week, these have been noticeably absent, until today. We read the papers for a while, before heading off to the pick up the hire-car.
On picking up the hire-car, we headed straight out of town towards Humpty Doo, where we had lunch at the pub.
Crocodile, Buffalo and Barramundi at the Humpty Doo HotelAt the pub, a nearby woman mentioned to us the Big Boxing Crocodile near Humpty Doo, Northern Territory, so of course we had to take a look,We also stopped in at the Adelaide River War Cemetery, a really wonderful place to visit. It’s physically beautiful, and a respectful place, remembering both those who died, and the many Territorians impacted by World War II, in particular.
On spec, we took a turn off the road to visit “The Lake Bennett Resort”. “This feels like an old church youth camp”, Sue commented, and I agreed. It’s a resort based around an artificial lake. On arrival, The owner and manager warmly welcomed us in. “Please have a drink and stay for the sunset”, they said. Though it would have been awesome, we were keen to get back to Darwin before dark. The owner mentioned her plans for development of the resort, which sound exciting. “Good luck”, we wished her, as we made our way back to Darwin.
Lake Bennett Resort, near Adelaide River, Northern Territory.Termite Mounds at the Lake Bennett ResortIn the end, we clocked up a couple of hundred kilometres.
Half an hour or so after watching Heat 2 of Melodifestivalen, the annual contest which selects Sweden’s song for the Eurovision Song Contest, I still have the melody of one of the songs stuck in my head. The song, “A Million Years” by Mariette is really very good: it’s memorable, and was performed well. It’s the first song in this year’s finals which I think genuinely has a chance of making it to Eurovision.
The other song which made it directly through to the final was “Good Lovin” by Benjamin Ingrosso. Benjamin was always a shoe-in to make it to the final. With his teenage-girl-friendly good looks, and having previously won Junior Melodifestivalen, he was well-known to the audience, and received a large round of applause. His mother, Pernilla Wahlgren has previously competed in the contest, and his uncle is one of the guys from Swedish House Mafia, so he also comes with a Swedish show-biz royalty background. I thought the song was okay.
Other competitors included Roger Pontare, a Sami singer who competed for Sweden twice in Eurovision, and a couple of other singers/rappers I’d never previously heard of. Ola Salo, who was a member of “The Ark” (they were in Eurovision with “Not The Worrying Kind” was a song-writer for one of the bands.
There were also lots of great showtune numbers in the show, and one of the co-hosts, David Lindgren, even stripped to his shorts. It wasn’t completely gratuitous, as it was part of a tribute to previous Melodifestivalen numbers, and a reference to Viktor and Samir from last year. He joked he had a “pappakrop” (a dad’s body). Yeah, sure. “Pull the other one” and take it from someone who has one, David.
David Lindgren steals the show at Melodifestivalen 2017
It’s been a while since it’s rained this well in Sydney. In fact, it’s rained so heavily the storm-water drains on Crown Street, Surry Hills have been overflowing. Hooray!
As a child during the 1970s, I remember ABC-TV in Australia used to run some fairly “art house” cartoons in the afternoon. Well, we would call them “art house” today, but that wasn’t a phrase I knew or understood at the age of seven or eight. This was, of course, long before the days of the Afternoon Show with James Valentine, Michael Tunn etc. My memory is vague, though I can still vividly recall watching the programs which were in the days before colour television (1975) and they were largely without words. Years later, I assume they were cartoons made in Europe (Eastern Europe?) which the ABC probably picked up very inexpensively through some deal with the European Broadcasting Union. Sadly, a search on Google has yet to confirm this, or maybe I just dreamed this up. Am I the only person who remembers these?
Anyway, the point of this anecdote is to talk about the Swedish phenomenon of Christmas Eve viewing on Swedish television. Every year at about 3pm (the sun has set in most of Sweden) on December 24, roughly half the population sits down to watch Donald Duck cartoons. In Australia, we watch football grand finals, in Sweden they watch “Kalle Anka och hans vänner önskar God Jul” (Donald Duck and his friends wish you a Happy/Merry/Good Christmas”.
As you’ll see from the images, it’s something which even trends on Twitter!
There’s a terrific article in Slate at the moment which explains the significance of the phenomenon.
You do not tape or DVR Kalle Anka for later viewing. You do not eat or prepare dinner while watching Kalle Anka. Age does not matter—every member of the family is expected to sit quietly together and watch a program that generations of Swedes have been watching for 50 years. Most families plan their entire Christmas around Kalle Anka, from the Smörgåsbord at lunch to the post-Kalle visit from Jultomten. “At 3 o’clock in the afternoon, you can’t to do anything else, because Sweden is closed,”
The article explains…
The show first aired in 1959, when Swedes were just starting to own televisions. “You couldn’t have done this in 1970,” said Charlotte Hagström, an ethnology professor at Lund University and archivist of the university’s Folk Life Archives. “It had to be 1960 when television was new.” The fact that there was only one channel in Sweden until 1969 and only two—both public-service stations run by Sweden’s equivalent of the BBC—until 1987 helped, too.
So why has it lived on?
Sweden’s affection for Kalle Anka is tied up with older holiday traditions. “It’s the dream of the old peasant village before people moved to towns,” she said. “Kalle Anka is almost like gathering around the fire in old times and listening to fairy tales.”
Interesting stuff. Which brings me back to those ABC cartoons from the 70s. Am I the only one who remembers them?
