Curating...

... for Knots in the String.

This rather apt saying appeared this week in one of those serendipitous moments in life. Because I was curating at the time.

On a practical level, checking the calendar – looking at what I could conceivably do without fluster and flurry and moving the rest around. Curating social media, aquaintances, activities.

Curating the house and taking armloads of this’s and that’s to the bin, checking the fridge for useless’s and use-by’s. Our house is refining more and more – emptying out, which is perfect for a small, timber cottage.

Curating my wardrobe. By this stage in summer, I’m down to the bare essentials – a few pairs of old comfy denim shorts and favourite polo’s and T’s.

And swimwear – perhaps not so well curated. Or perhaps it is. I love every single swimsuit. I own 7 of varying ages, but don’t condemn me, because like freckles and wrinkles, they all have stories to tell.

For example, the infamous red bathers that Mum wore until the end. She swam every day in summer when on the coast (4 months off 90), and was remembered for being that slim, lithe, elderly, white haired woman in the red swimsuit. I purchased the bathers for her in Cairns, and they are so much a memory of my mum that I’ll never let them go. Lovely high-cut legs and scooped neck and back that Mum wore perfectly. Special. I feel protected by Mum when I wear her swimsuit.

***

I suppose I curate my life every day – presenting it to my sensibilities in the best possible way. No one would ever really see it as a curation, but isn’t that what we all do? Curate our actions, thoughts and moods – weed out the damaging and polish the positive?

I get curious satisfaction from it – it helps me see beauty in the smallest things because they’ve been ordered in a certain way, not lost in the chaos. It opens my eyes…

Doing:

A week of astonishing weather, so most days, I’ve been on the beach with one or other or both of my longtime beach friends. Also children, grandchildren and dogs. It’s a riotous, beautiful, madhouse of beings (think The Durrells). I marvel that within minutes of exploring, one child had not just found a shell with a beautiful hermit crab inside, but also caught a baby catfish about the size of a tadpole!

We all chat, swapping recipes for a decent life, we elders watching over and swimming with the brood. And perhaps (in my mind anyway), hoping that we can still be as agile and vital into our 90’s, like my mum.

One day, a battery-recharge day, I took myself, my bag and my beach chair to a favourite spot and swam alone in pristine water, so clear that I cursed not having the GoPro. I watched someone-else’s children in the distance and relished my quiet, sitting in front of the pine trees and using shade from the boobiallas. No wind, peace. One can’t ask for anything more.

Strangely, whatever was blocking my fiction-writing glided away and so I wrote in the ever-present if sandy notebook. Perhaps I was more relaxed. Perhaps it was being brave enough to use Bing’s A-I image generator earlier, to create plastic A-I scenes from my novel (now called The Oblate).

Plastic because the images are not rendered by human hand and artistic soul. There are errors – my protagonist is not handsome and chiselled, like his A-I version. My fellow is lame, and 12^th century Venice looks nothing like A-I would have me believe, but A-I created its own visual of my imagination and it touched some of my imagined reality. I have moral concerns about A-I but despite that, and perversely, I look at these images and they inspire me to write on. (Hypocrite!)

Watching:

Endeavour. I’ve missed this excellent series (the prequel to Morse) and so began at Series One this week. Excellent. There’s something of Sherlock (the Cumberbatch series) in the deductive skill of Morse. Thoroughly enjoying it. And love the music. Last night, it was The Chorus of The Hebrew Slaves from Verdi’s Nabucco.

Glorious. Chills across my skin.

But as my husband has been away this week, most evenings I’ve been writing, with Spotify’s ballet music for company.

Listening:

The Book of Colours by Australian writer, Robyn Cadwallader. Beautifully written. Set in England in the 14^th century. Well-narrated too, by a woman no less. I was surprised I accepted her narration so readily because I’m very hard on female narrators.

Reading:

Ballet Confidential by David Macallister, former Principal and then Director of The Australian Ballet. The answers to questions we’re all afraid to ask – tights, body odour, G-strings, accidents, temperament, emotional attachments, #metoo, body strength. It’s honest and forthright. I’m a huge fan of Macallister. When he was director, he took the Australian Ballet to new heights and was highly respected as a dancer, administrator, creative and as an Australian.

***

Curiously ‘curation’ must be on my mind, because just before writing this post I had commented to CK Steefel:

If This Is How To Go Viral on Substack--

“When I look at the list of essays I read, I can see a subconscious curation - only the gentle ones… the calm ones, the deep-thinking ones. Specifically, the ones that assume that there are people and pockets in this world where kindness and goodness are what we desire. And need.”

So that even when looking for what to read, listen to or watch, I’m still sorting and storing content unconsciously, ordering the best to the front, relegating the not-so’s to the bottom of the pile.

And in one of those spooky moments, this arrived on my (curated, naturally) Pinterest feed.

I thought yes, Oubaitori. That my day will bloom in its own time and in its own way. Another perfect Japanese word to be filed – at the top of the curated pile.

Music for this week? The sea has featured in my life so much each day, sliding off my skin and leaving a salty rime behind. More experiences, more memories, so that I can’t really go past this because it fits the vibe of the week. The vibe, people…

PS: the Terrier is back to walking on the beach, hunting for shells and swimming. He’s very happy (so am I…)