I’m waiting for a space with a new specialist. Looks like I’ll be waiting till May, which kind of means that I can’t really start the rebuilding project that I committed to before Christmas.

A home care service has started; personal care and house work. It’s interesting having my time managed by somebody else to the extent that it has happened. I think they have the impression that because I don’t work I don’t really have a life. I hope these are just teething problems.

After watching previous seasons of The Biggest Loser over the last couple of weeks I’ve been thinking more about my body and fitness. I wasn’t really given a lot of information about or options as a child and teenager about what to expect from my body or even a clear sense of fitness options beyond standing frames. I wasn’t involved in sport (even wheelchair sports). This is no one’s fault, but I do feel like I’m missing out on getting the most out of my body in terms of the strength that it has and weight loss options. Yes I do have a belly! Fitness is also a good distraction and stress management tool.

So I did a bit of digging and found this. I am ashamed to admit that I don’t even remember being told what sort of cerebral palsy I have, so I guess I need to start there. I could make a guess but given I’m going back to see the GP on Friday I’ll ask.

For example, I’ve realised as I written this using voice recognition software again, how much of a tactile person I really am. I’m impressed with how quickly I can get things “down on paper”, I do miss typing. So I think exercise will be good for my head as much as anything else. It might also help me reconnect with my form and stop feeling like a head on a stick.

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One such blessing: the weekend just gone was filled with beautiful food, organic food markets, conversations about social and environmental responsibility and change management, tree planting laughter, love and hope.

We asked these friends; a couple nicknamed here VW and VM to come and visit us from Melbourne after we did “a heavy mile or two” by phone before Christmas and  on the 4th they rang and by the 8th we were hugging and laughing like no time had passed.

VW — is a placemaker with a Mauritius heritage that I met through work. In fact he met PB first.  He specialises in bringing people, place and environmental consciousness together, with very loud suits, amazing love and passion and laughter coupled with an incredible deep and profound spirituality that never fails to move me. He has studied under Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth” environmental movement. In addition to this though he connects the dots between environmental and social sustainability and inclusion – which is where I’m passionate.

His wife the wonderful (whom I will call) VMis a skilled and talented musician with a more quiet but no less veracious passion for place and purpose, the environment and those she loves.

On the initial evening a warm balmy night light tapas and wine flowed with beautiful light but smart conversation flowed. On the Saturday which was an incredible hot day we trotted of to the Orange Grove Organic Markets — which demonstrates a good example of the sort of places VW aims towards. Despite walking around and not spotting food VW and VM seemed to conjure an armload of fresh produce. The wish on their part and agreed by us was cooking us all a “feast”. And what a fun time that was. We talked. We laughed. My newly beloved kitchen was filled with beautiful sights sounds and smells, with a pleasant subtlety and freshness to the footprint left on me, the house and with a bit of luck the planet.

PB and I had been hatching a plan to plant a tree with the lovely pair. So after a nap and some more philosophical and consciousness conversation we planted a “hopi” Crepe myrtle tree — not this one, that we also picked up at our trip to the Market. Crepe myrtle have a particular significance to me, especially the pink ones. To me they mark an arrival. The tree was then duly blessed, both spiritually and in the practical “watering” way.

I felt content, aware and heard in my space. Embraced and conscious. Mindful too of my needs, my prints and my intelligence which has felt slightly dorment but is re-awakened with a heavy dollop of social justice again.

I feel more alive and we feel supported.

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I have been challenged today. Challenged away from advocacy to participation. True participation. The embracing of life.. Beyond all the rhetoric I have been sprouting about living for the now.

I had brunch with a woman. She is an active passionate woman, with grown and flown children and a part time job. She is strong and opinionated. She also has a disability. She can not easily recall what has been, or what will be. It is an acquired and hidden impairment that she can and does choose at times not to disclose.

She heard me explaining why I had left the job. The reason normally elicits a visible response, especially from those that understood the job, like she did. It didn’t this time. I got a simple “oh”. This was fine. The strong clear brown eyes, held my gaze with both unnerving comprehension and calmness. I told her of my renewed vigor for social equity especially regarding accessibility and my renewed conviction to live authentically. I talked of my desire to choose my activities and do what was important.

We talked of books; mostly owing to the fact that I expressed my intent to get more reading done in my off time. We talked of folks we know in common. In hindsight I think we pretty much agreed on most things if in circular ways.

She asked me what I did for fun. If I’m honest I struggled to come up with two hobbies that I really enjoyed, and that I was keen to talk of: reading and travel.

In one line though, she challenged me. With 6 words she made me stop and reconsider.

“Because I’ve never seen you laugh”.

Now to be fair, she has only ever known me in a professional setting, but even so?

Over spring roles and prawn stir-fry, at a party last night, a relative recently retired, drew an image on scrap paper; a rectangle intersected by a diagonal line, roughly in the middle. The resulting triangles represented in turn one’s job and personal (the rest of life), life. He explained that a healthy and fairly equal balance was required, and to be found in retirement or in a good break. He, like me was struggling some what to maintain a tiny personal triangle in the rectangle of life.

Time to re-calibrate my triangles perhaps.

Should we not all do this? After all perhaps the best way to advocate is indeed to live.

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