Color.....or shave?

I'm taking part in Australia's Worlds Greatest Shave 2011. Here's the deal:

The Leukaemia Foundation funds services to support patients and families living with leukaemias, lymphomas, myeloma and related blood disorders. All the services are free. My fundraising also funds blood cancer research to find better treatments and cures.

If I receive contributions of $500 or more, I will color my whole head. I've done stripes of color before but this is for all my hair. When you make your contribution, leave a message about which color you vote for: pink, purple, blue, red, or green.

If I receive contributions of $1,500 or more.....I will shave my head (yipes!). I will leave a little teeny bit of hair (so I don't end up with a completely sun-burned scalp; I am in Australia after all.) but otherwise, it's cueball time!


Why am I doing this?

• For my friends who've worked so hard for the Team in Training and other similar groups: Anna, Gigi, and Sandi specifically.
  
  
• For Australia. It's a nice country and it's been good to me. This is a way to say "thank you".
  
  
• I'm donating plasma every 2 weeks during 2011 as a New Years resolution and this fits in well with that.
  
  
• Finally because....well....why not? I don't have to go to an office, I don't see clients, so I don't have to worry about the effect on my business and because, well, I'm that kinda gal!

The deadline is MARCH 12 because that's when I have an appointment with my hairdresser.

C'mon, you know you want to have a vote on what I do with my head! Colour or shave? What'll it be, friends??

The News From Christchurch

I am devastated by the pictures from Christchurch. I've been there and it's a beautiful city. I've been in Cathedral Square to watch some guy pontificating (in a wizards hat) from the top of a ladder. Cathedral Square is in ruins.

I'm so pleased that it sounds like Australia and the US were on the phone immediately to offer assistance. I know the Australian search-and-rescue teams are already on their way if they're not already there.

But for those of you who are concerned about my safey, Christchurch is about 1,500 miles from Brisbane. That's roughly the distance from DC to Denver. We're fine here in Australia.

The Shape Of An Accent

When I first arrived, everyone who heard me speak asked me if I was here on holiday. They knew from the first word that I wasn't Australian and they guessed "American" pretty quickly.

I've noticed, recently, that no one asks if I'm here on holiday any more. They recognize that I'm not Australian -- an Australian accent may be impossible for anyone else to fake -- but they apparently think I do belong here. If they guess, they are far more likely now to guess that I'm Canadian. Being around Australians is softening the edges of my accent.

Australian vowels are wide and sometimes multi-syllabic. Imagine the grin on the Cheshire Cat. That's roughly the shape your mouth has to take to prounounce an "a" like an Australian. Though it helps if you've also got an extra hinge in your soft palate...

American vowels are flat, even hard and can tend to the nasally.

Canadian vowels are more....moderate than American (just like most things Canadian). A little softer, a little rounder, a little gentler.

If we were to assign geographical shapes to accents, then:

American

Canadian

Australian

Why Does Homesickness Always Take Me By Surprise?

December and January were tough. I was blue quite a bit. I finally "remembered" that this particular form of blue-ness was simple homesickness.

How does one forget what homesick feels like? I've experienced homesickness before. But it never feels like the picture I have in my head of what it should be like.

I keep expecting "homesick" to fill my head full of pictures -- of my house, my mom, my church, the Potomac, my friends, PMTI, etc. I expect it to fill my head full of pictures of things I am "missing".

It doesn't come like that. I get very few mental images and I don't feel a feeling of "missing". What I get is....restless, antsy, leaden, out of sorts, discombobulated. The strongest sensation I get when I'm homesick is of being out of sync.

Because, literally, that's what I am.

Every town, every community, every place has its own rhythm and its own energy. My neighborhood in DC has one, which is part of the larger DC vibe, which is part of the American energetic pattern. I've lived 44 of my 50 years in the US. Of those 44 years, I've lived 22 of them in the metro DC area; 14 specifically in DC.

I am strongly attuned to the American vibe with a specific attunement, you might say, to DC. Brisbane, not to mention Australia, don't vibe the same way. I can point to specific differences -- language, food, and customs for example -- but that doesn't point to the deeper thing, the thing that makes me sick for home. Australia and Brisbane move to a different rhythm and a different energy. And it ain't the rhythm and vibe of my soul.

Adapting at a deep level to a new place takes time, more time than most of us expect. In my experience as an Army brat, I'd say at least 2 years (which is a problem when you move, on the average, every 2.5 years like we did!). I can enjoy myself here. I can be grateful for this time here. I can learn how to move around and communicate like I belong here. I can "get" the customs and the ways. I can even fall in love with this place.

But I'm not at "home" here. Working to adapt to a different energy/vibe is tiring. It's work. It's trying to go north when everyone else is going northeast. Do-able, but tiring.

It's exacerbated by my Army brat roots. We moved often and there was never really enough time/room to experience all the messy emotions that go with that. So here I am as an adult re-experiencing the loss, the dislocation, the chaos (because my soul apparently never got the message -- or doesn't care -- that this is temporary) and going right back to the way we did it as kids -- shut it down, shove the emotions back in the corner, move forward, "adapt".

Sigh.

And I guess when it gets too tiring I get homesick. Blue. Tired. Out. Of. Sync.

An unavoidable side-effect of being an ex-pat.

Maybe I'll remember that next time....