This week

By Vita Forest

Sunday sunrise at Curl Curl

This week I have been

READING

• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
• Wanderlust by Rebecca Solnit

WRITING

• At Bombo
• Programs for school including one on Poetry incorporating David Chapelle’s short film of Sergei Poluntin dancing to Take me to Church by Hozier.  I am excited!

EXPERIENCING Sydney’s extreme weather this week – storms and heavy rain on Tuesday, crazy-high temperatures on Friday and Saturday.

VISITING the water to cool off on the weekend… Murray Rose/Redleaf Pool in Woollahra and Curl Curl Beach.

WALKING AND TALKING with Saskia at Curl Curl after a swim.

BUMPING into an old student and family at Curl Curl (it was all happening at Curl Curl…)

MISSING outdoor sketching due to the extreme temperatures.

MAKING

• time to relax.
• time for yoga.

Saturday morning at Refleaf pool, Woollahra

 

 

 

 

This week

By Vita Forest

This week I have been

WRITING A gypsy caravan, a fire balloon and a Baby Austin

READING Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by J.K. Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany

DRAWING in sunglasses in the Sydney Botanical Gardens with my lovely Sketch club.

ATTENDING Classic Flow at Barangaroo with five hundred other yogis (yoga to live classical music – ah bliss!)

LISTENING to the grand piano and cello at Classic Flow and then the surprising addition of a wonderful choir (I had my eyes closed and didn’t see them tiptoe on!)

WATCHING Gloria at the Griffin Theatre

EATING Flan Catalan with Saskia Mmmm!

ENJOYING some beautiful spring weather

 

 

Tea in a teeny tiny cup

By Vita Forest

Isaboe and the teapot

Today I had a busy day – marking and playground duty before school, teaching all day, lunchtime gone with dance auditions, meetings and eating lunch after school, organizing the logistics of two excursions (one next week) and rushing to finish an email so I could rush out the door early to (somewhat ironically) make it to my favourite yoga class.

The aim of many a yoga class for many a yogi, is to get through to that last five minutes when you are allowed to lie on the ground, with your eyes closed doing absolutely nothing at all.  Bliss…

As I write this, I am sipping jasmine tea out of an extremely tiny cup, pausing to fill it from my tiny glass teapot.  The size of the cup forces me to stop and slow down.  To stop rushing.  Time is a scarce resource.  But does it have to be?

At work I am trying to be extremely organised, to avoid this rushing, this feeling of panic, of having to be elsewhere.  Perhaps it will all settle down.  Soon.  When my programs are finished, when the auditions are done, when our assembly is over, when our item is learned, when we have had our video conference with our sister school, when I have booked the buses for the excursion…  Are you the same?

But at home – I am scheduling in some slowness.  Some luxury.  Yes I want to write, yes I need to send out submissions.  But if I never stop, I’ll never let those thoughts float to the surface.  Never be able to know what I really think.  Never recognize those moments of revelation.

I need to slow down.

Here are some of the things I do to indulge in slowness:

• walk when I could drive.
• breaststroke when I could freestyle (for the swimmers amongst us).
• hand sew or make something from scratch instead of buying it.
• read – preferably all day after sleeping in.
• have a picnic and just watch the world go by.
• cuddle a cat.
• sip tea.
• weed by hand.

What has happened to us?  Why is being busy a badge of honour?

Perhaps I should stop writing and just enjoy my tea…

Sometimes you just need to drink tea

This week

By Vita Forest

A beautiful day on Sydney Harbour

This week I have been

• READING Eyrie by Tim Winton
• WRITING
  • Overheard in Dollar King
  • On listening
• PRIORITIZING some time for blog writing (school work could devour all my time at this point of the year)…
• WATCHING The Family Law on SBS (quite hilarious).
• VISITING North Sydney Oval for Moonlight Cinema with Vastra and Saskia and Vaucluse House with Saskia, Sui-Sui and Alessandro.
• MAKING a collaborative artwork in class with oil pastels and two large pieces of brown paper.
• LISTENING to my class belt out Owl City’s Fireflies (can’t help but make me grin).
• CELEBRATING my niece Pippi’s 6th Birthday.
• RELAXING with some restorative yoga after an extremely hectic week (thanks Jade!)

This week

By Vita Forest

Sydney in the rain

This week I have been

• READING
  • The Art of Asking by Amanda Palmer
  • The Wolf Wilder by Katherine Rundell
  • Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell
• WRITING
  • Boat building
  • Down the rabbit hole
• MAKING the knitted cowl for Lucy (nearly done).
• WATCHING
  • my kids looking puzzled and then disturbed when Robert Wilson came on stage at the Drama Theatre at the Sydney Opera House to give the keynote address for the 2016 Sydney Festival and then proceeded to stand there without speaking for a good few minutes.  We had a good conversation about that later…
  • the new Star Wars movie (woo hoo!)
• VISITING
  • The White Rabbit Gallery
  • Dresden Optics in Newtown – how fabulous are they?
• DOING lots of yoga
• TRYING not to get too wet (there has been a lot of rain in Sydney this week).

 

This week

By Vita Forest

Jacaranda progress

This week I have been

READING The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard (and savouring every word).

WRITING

• Yoga with a View
• I am Georgie, I am Lu

MAKING a drawing of Totoro and drawing lines across his big circular belly.  I then photocopied the drawing and my class used it to write up their descriptions of the forest spirit.  (Tia “he has a silky white tummy.”  Marvin “the littlest Totoro looks like a tooth.”)

VISITING backstage at the Sydney Opera House to supervise our students for their big upcoming combined schools performance.

FIXING costumes for the event above with needle, thread, safety pins and cut up pieces of a glittery bowler hat.

WATCHING  the new Australian film The Dressmaker.

STRETCHING at yoga on the Statgazer lawn at Barangaroo Reserve.

Flame tree – imagine one of these next to a Jacaranda.