Friday Thoughts #7

This summer has been cooler than usual. We haven’t had any days over 40C, and when the temperature finally reaches 30C, the heat is followed quickly by a cool change. That has changed this week; after a very cold week last week (some days didn’t even make it over 20C), we are now on our third day over 30C. The current temperature is 39.4C, according to my app. We often have slightly lower temperatures here near the water; it is currently 41.0C in Canterbury, where we used to live (only 11km away). This means I reached my goal of five swims in the ocean for the summer. I walked down this morning with my daughter to Elwood beach, and we had a couple of swims while there (does that make it six swims?).

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Last week I had a bit of a slump in motivation and energy levels, mainly hormonal, I think, but made worse by two sleepless nights. I managed to get my running done and my work/household chores mostly done, but the routines I’m trying to build fell away a bit, so now I’m trying to get back into the swing of doing the things that I know will help me feel good. I usually leave Fridays relatively free, so I’ve got time to fit in something fun or clear my lists if I’ve fallen behind. After my less-than-stellar week of doing all the things, I decided on Friday that I could at least finish one project that was on my list – print the photos for our travel gallery wall we had planned. I also had some books to return and pick up from the library, and since they were in the same direction, I decided to combine both tasks. Both are within walking distance, but when I. got to the photo printer, the lights were on, the doors were locked, and there was no indication when the printer would be back. I went and bought some bread and came back but still no sign of anyone, so I decided to head off to the library. After success at the library, I remembered a photo printer in Bay St, so I decided to detour there on my way home. Arriving at the printer, there was a sign on the door: “Due to eye injury, we will be closed today.” Clearly the photos were not getting printed today and it was time to head home and plop on the couch with some cheese and crackers. Six kilometres of walking with the stack of library books and no photos printed left me decidedly irritated.

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The good news – I got the photos printed today, but this time I drove due to the heat. Once again, I combined it with a trip to the library, but today I also popped into the Bayside Gallery. They have free shows that change regularly, and the current show is a selection of local artists and VCE students.

I’ve been meaning to drop in as it hits a few boxes for me, being a chance to engage in my immediate neighbourhood and also a little adventure. I’m always blown away when I see what the student artist can do, but there was also a good variety of artworks in this exhibition. One particular artwork that caught my attention was these paintings of a carpark. What most attracted me was the dramatic lighting and the idea of capturing such a mundane and often ugly but ubiquitous part of modern cities.

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This is a fascinating post that makes me want to track down a copy of Roget’s Thesaurus. Like the author, I had only ever encountered the alphabetical list of synonyms and antonyms. I usually used it when the word I first thought to use didn’t quite capture the idea I was thinking about. Still, a book organised to find the right word to express an idea is a different beast altogether. Thinking about this made me recall what one of my lecturers said in my early years of theological study: our task was to find the correct words to talk about God. I don’t know where I’m going with this, except maybe, to say how challenging the task of wrestling ideas into words with the best chance of genuinely conveying what you are thinking is.

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In the time it’s taken me to write this post (and no, I haven’t taken hours to write this) the temperature has now gone down to 25.0C, and big fat drops of rain have caused me to rush out and pull the washing off the line. The cool change is here.