We all had a lovely time in Melbourne. Steve and I took it in turns to work remotely for a week each, and we stayed with Steve’s mum who kindly did most of the shopping, so even in my working week when I finished work at 6.30 or 7pm, it felt comparatively restful. We had special time with Felix and Becky, and Felix and Duncan, during my week off, and enjoyed the impressive light art at the Botanical Gardens (though I think it should be free so that cost isn’t a barrier to peoples’ access). The four of us went to another Escape Room where we tested our problem solving and teamwork skills, and Steve took the girls back to the cat café. Speaking of cats, Lotus seemed to enjoy the change of scene too, including stints in the garden and prostrate stretches in front of the fire during the evenings.
At night in bed, I finished reading the memoir by Mary Louise Parker: Dear Mr You, comprised of honest, funny and sometimes sad letters written to significant men in her life, including her father and a taxi driver she was once rude to. I also read an account of developing the Astra Zenica vaccine at Oxford university written by two of the women who led the project, Professor Sarah Gilbert and Dr Catherine Green: Vaxxers. I snuck off to see the Pierre Bonnard exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria and Steve and I saw the Rembrandt exhibition there too, which displayed many lithographs and some thoughtfully placed larger paintings. I really enjoyed watching the girls discover some of my favourite movie classics: A Fish Called Wanda; The Castle; and When Harry Met Sally. What I didn’t do as much as I usually do was listen to podcasts.
I listen to podcasts when I do gardening at home every weekend and when I ride into town on my commute to work. I listen to them when I walk back up the street after accompanying the girls to their bus stop in the mornings; when I ride my bike for exercise; and when I’m driving around. All in all, I can spend a couple of hours a day listening to something, stuffed into the spaces between doing other things. Podcasts have been instrumental in my self-care routine and getting through hard times: as a distraction from them and because some podcasts provide active advice on managing hard things – such as the podcast Parental as Anything, which tackles some of the challenges we grapple with.
Some podcasts are tied to particular rituals: I always listen to Annabel Crabb and Leigh Sales’ Chat 10 Looks 3 on Friday lunchtimes as I take a longer break for lunch. If a new episode isn’t available, I listen to one from their archives. These days I always listen to Long Distance Call when walking back home after dropping the girls off, which is a podcast between journalists Geraldine Doogue and her daughter Eliza Harvey discussing life in Jakarta and Beirut when Eliza’s husband was posted to both places and they and their young family lived there for several years. I started listening to this one reluctantly at the insistence of my friend Karlene: I wasn’t particularly interested in either country, but Eliza speaks so engagingly about life there, and politics and domestic life here, that I got hooked starting at recent podcasts and have now gone back from the beginning. I am just about to face the COVID years, with them oblivious to what is in store for them and the world, coming at a time of significant political instability and mounting tension and demonstrations in Beirut leading up to that time. Some things they have predicted – such as the close election result for Albanese – and others they have got wrong – such as Biden’s victory and that COVID wouldn’t be as significant as SARS.
I’m ready to ride through these years with them, as I did for another podcast I listen to just as religiously: Two Peas in a Podcast, another one with two women, this time friends sharing their stories and interviewing others who have a child with a disability, unravelling the complex experiences of enrichment and struggle that many of these peoples’ lives entail. These women are very funny and empathetic, and travel with me like good friends.
I listen to the ABC’s radio programs and podcast series All in the Mind while gardening on weekends, which always has an interesting story to tell about our minds and brains; and to at least one Conversation with Richard Fidler while gardening, to delve in to someone’s life story, unusual profession like specializing in a particular tiny insect, or incredible adventure.
I consume The Minefield on bus trips from work, which discusses philosophical and ethical dilemmas – and some pop culture analysis too, including of Fawlty Towers, which we just introduced the girls to last week. If there are episodes of Ladies we Need to Talk, with Yumi Stynes, I listen to that during the week, and to true stories in Days Like These or Tall Tales and True.
On car trips I see whether there is a new episode of Everything is Alive, the only American podcast I follow at the moment, which zooms in on seeing the world from the perspective of a coat, a lamppost, or a baguette (do you remember being dough? What’s it like to be kneaded?’). It also cleverly includes a related interesting story or fact through a real phone interview, such as for the baguette interview, about the rolls thrown to customers at an expansive café in Missouri.
I will be finished with the Long Distance Call episodes in a couple of months, and have some recommendations for new podcasts when that happens. Ideally, another two women talking about life.
I will also see what is on offer on Radio National, either live radio or recorded and subsequently available as a podcast. The most popular musical instruments were counted down as voted by Australians, running over a weekend a month ago and compered by five or so pairs of classical radio presenters. This really got me hooked on radio for that period. I have started to catch up with the subsequent Big Weekend of Books that is also available as podcasts and has treasures to be discovered too.
Thank goodness for the music and talk that we can enrichen our lives with at no cost. I don’t know what I would do without either.
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