(Image from 'Pix' Magazine, August 24, 1957)
As trumpeted by me last time, I have just had one whole week off work. It's been most salving. Like most people, I hate to feel to be a cog in something turning, to quote Joni Mitchell, to feel like a machine propelled along well-worn, circular grooves. When I'm all caught up in the fuss of work, even the small, soothing, eminently do-able life improvements seem impossible. I feel not unlike Wile E Coyote running in the air over some endless chasm. It's only when he looks down that he shrieks and starts to plummet. Deviating from my routine sometimes feels akin to doing the Coyote Look-down.
It has, however, only taken one work-free week to make me realise that that attitude, while typical of my fretful character, is, in fact, sheer nonsense. So from now on, I am going to make pots of tea in no end of exotic varieties, instead of the usual tea bag! Squeezing fresh juice from the abundance of oranges on my tree will no longer loom in my mind as a Herculean task best left to body builders! Driving to Mount Lofty to look at the Magnolias will be as mandatory, nay perhaps more mandatory, than doing the laundry!
But best of all has been the fact that two crucial yet neglected bodily functions have creaked into life again:
1. The Singing-Like-A-Lark function
When I was younger, I used to sing to myself all the time. Now, it must be said that my voice is less than distinguished and that other people's aural pleasure is not always necessarily at the top of my list of priorities. But, contrary to popular misconception, I have always thought it a sign of good mental health to see a person singing to themselves. I used to walk into the city singing my head off, warble in any bath or shower that was fortunate enough to find me in it, and practically put on a full broadway show whenever I got near the booze. These days, however, I'm lucky if I can muster the energy to croak along to one of my favourite local furniture showroom ads.
But this week I've been singing along to just about anything. Just minutes ago I confess that I was belting out "The Greatest Love of All" when it came on the car radio. Although my musical tastes are probably best described as catholic*, it is a song that I would usually describe as unspeakable (a bit like singing along to a self-help book which you suspect is actually self-serving nonsense peddled to make some snake-oil merchant rich. But, yet again, I digress). So, there I found myself thumping the dashboard zealously in an orgy of unbridled self-love and braying 'No matter what they take from me, they can't take away my DIG-nity!!!'. And it felt so darn good. I would highly recommend it. In a confined, sound proof space like an automobile, that is. An automobile which has not pulled up at the stop lights with its windows down, of course.
2. The Laughing-Like-A-Loon function
I went to a play last night, and experienced an uncontrollable fit of hysterical laughter. These things always lose something in translation so all I will say is:
Nice old lady on stage.
Pea-Green A-frame Nightdress with high puckered neck-line.
Montgomery Burns.
(I guess you had to be there).
Anyways, I was absolutely wracked with convulsions. I was weeping and stuffing my (unused)handkerchief in my mouth. It's been so long since those particular muscles have been used that it felt like I'd just had a work-out when I left the theatre. I really, really, REALLY wanted to stop laughing - it can look so frightfully rude - which just made matters worse. Fortunately I was right up the back and it was very very dark.
(I tried to think back to the last time I lost it like that. I think it was when I was listening to an extremely erudite lawyer slash academic explain some rather technical changes to legislation by reference to Lord of the Rings. I looked around me only to find serious corporate types nodding with furrowed brows as she airily referred to Frodo, Treebeard and Farmer Giles of Ham. Needless to say, I fell apart, taking a dear friend down with me as well).
So, I would highly recommend Laughing-like-a-loon to bring one back to life. It's fun! It's free! In fact the only expense is usually someone else's!
*I know I may well be deluged by comments by those who know me well pointing out that unspeakability is not necessarily a bar to a particular song finding its way into my music library. Consider those comments noted, taken on board and cogitated upon without a trace of bitterness or bile.
In closing, I give you the Magnolias at Mount Lofty. Hurrah!:
