A Luce Affiliation

In April I reached Peak Maternity Leave. Nora slept at times and on Wednesday evenings I rode up the Johnston street hill to Fitzroy to do painting classes. I have no natural aptitude for visual arts.  In high school I disliked it so much I once volunteered to clean the studio sinks instead of painting.  I have since learnt to enjoy doing things I am bad at. The painting classes were terribly fun.  There was cheese, cake and apple cordial.  Actually there was wine too but I'm not much of a drinker these days.  The teacher was fabulous, he took us step by step through painting tonally (light and dark!) using colours (warm and cool!) and glazing (painting one colour over another colour!). This all culminated in my fairly rudimentary painting of an apple: My favourite part of the painting class was learning the artists' idiom 'to pull it out of the fire': to rescue a painting from a seemingly catastrophic error. I love learning new idioms.  Ther...

Just returned from a quick 50 minute trip to the Fitzroy pool. Sunday afternoon, 34 degrees, summer sounds DJs playing. Pool is heaving with people. Water runs slick over my sunscreened arms. Boy crosses underneath me at the deep end, skimming the bottom of the pool.

Baby Nora was born 1 month ago.  She is our smallest, softest team member. It's been a nice slow time of year to be settling in to life with baby.  It's always quiet in Collingwood around new year anyway.  The cafes are closed, there's not much traffic on the roads and no one is rushing in the heat.  In the first few weeks I would go for a late afternoon walk around the streets.  I walked slower than I've ever walked.  And I felt so adventurous being outside in the world.  I would amble very slowly around the block, sometimes down Gold street or just along Johnston street.  Each afternoon I would try to return with a community update for Jason.  Important community updates included: an enormous branch fell off the gum tree in the park opposite our house.   A branch as big as a tree! the old men's club around the corner of our house started advertising a small dinner menu.  And the Sonsa man was there so it must be a Turkish ...

2015 was a bit of a strange year of reading for me. Fewer novels and more non-fiction.  Overall I read more than I thought I had. I'll begin with my top 5: Beloved- Toni Morrison Brother of the More Famous Jack- Barbara Trapido The Luminaries- Eleanor Catton The Natural Way of Things- Charlotte Wood Slouching towards Bethlehem- Joan Didion Books I read in 2015: Feminism Unfinished- Dorothy Sue Cobble, Linda Gordon, Astrid Henry As I Lay Dying- William Faulkner Big Magic- Elizabeth Gilbert The White Album- Joan Didion The Wife Drought- Annabel Crabbe M Train- Patti Smith The Shipping News- Annie Proulx The Thorn Birds- Colleen McCullough Beloved- Toni Morrison The Dressmaker- Rosalie Ham Green Valentine- Lili Wilkinson Birth Skills- Juju Sundin Feminism is for Everybody- bell hooks How to Be a Woman- Caitlin Moran My Brilliant Friend- Elena Ferrante The Intern- Gabrielle Tozer H is for Hawk- Helen McDonald Why so Slow? The Advancement of Women- Virginia V...

Six months since I wrote here.  But I have not been idle! I passed the ICU fellowship exam.  It's funny how it completely preoccupied me for several months and now it's just gone.  Not that I expected to miss it.  Jason and I went to Tasmania for a week.  We spent three days driving down from Devonport, staying at the Bay of Fires and then Freycinet.  We had the most glorious morning's walk along the Bay of Fires.  It was completely deserted but sunny enough to lie on the sand.  In Freycinet we walked to Wineglass bay and the Hazards.  The weather was spectacular- it rained but it wasn't cold.  We saw seven rainbows.  We huddled under a tree at wineglass bay eating our peanut butter and banana sandwiches, watching the rain and the birds and the rainbow over the bay.  The waves crashed in completely straight line.  Then we went on to Hobart for Dark Mofo.  What a great festival.  I was obsessed with fi...

Last night I went out to dinner with our friends Arla and Jesse and Bonnie and George.  Arla and Jesse are just emerging from the baby-making madness, with a 3 1/2 year old and an 18 month old, and Bonnie and George are expecting their first in 8 weeks. Arla was so full of beans.  She'd just finished reading 'What I loved', one of my favourite books.  I was so excited that she had the same reaction as me: reading it compulsively until late into the night, and then being so involved with the characters that she missed them when it was over. It's also an Art book, and we talked happily about the bacchanalian art parties we would like to throw.  So I think the next obvious book for her to read is Emly Bitto's 'The Strays', about Sunday and John Reed. Anyway, Arla asked for some recommendations.  Here they are, my favourite books from the last 3 years or so. The Tin Drum- Gunter Grass Bossypants- Tina Fey May we be forgiven- AM Homes Just Kids- Patti ...

The first Saturday we went to Bright for a wedding.  Bright is actually paradise.  Especially when it's sunny and the trees are blossoming.  I wore a dress and sandals all weekend and threatened to go swimming.  Jason and I went for a long walk along the river and wondered if the Bright hospital needs a critical care doctor and  sonographer. We went to a wedding in Wandiligong (Paradise North).  We went off the reservation at the reception, down to the creek at the bottom of the property.  I didn't quite go swimming: But I did attempt a Dirty-Dancing re-enactment. It turns out Jason's no Swayze. Last weekend after a long ICU day we rode into the city to see Nihls Frahm, an amazing German pianist with all manner of amps. He played in the Melbourne festival hub, a big hot wooden box of amazing sound.  It was a balmy night so we rode home the long way, zooming down the Yarra to bed.  Then it was just a breezy (ha!...