Unsupervised

 

Sometimes, when I marvel just how brave and resilient my widowed mother is, I realised I ought to give myself a little tap on the shoulder, occasionally and pause to acknowledge how brave and resilient I have been these past months. Last year probably was the most challenging year of my life and following my father's death I had been so busy cheering everyone else on and up that I hardly allowed myself to grieve. I deliberately choose not to dwell on certain events that would make me deeply sad and overall, this tactic has been working well. It is random little things that tug on my heartstrings, like looking at the calendar mum made for me (the only one she produced last year) last Christmas, containing different photos of my dad each month, framed by abstract watercolours of her, or realising that there are certain topics I won't ever be able to discuss with him. Above all, this is anything to do with gardening and I almost feel like an imposter now that mum seems to regard me as the authority on this topic, asking me for feedback on her gardening decisions. She has thankfully hired someone to help her and there is this unspoken agreement among us that my parents' garden, which was planned and maintained by dad and admired by friends and family alike will be kept up as well as she could. Obviously, I can't really do much to contribute on my often very short visits, but I will try my best and even in my own little garden here in suburbia, I sometimes hear my dad's sarcastic comments in my head when I potter around and wonder what he would do in my place.

Brain Food

Part of my day job is deciding what other people need to know and hence, to learn. I design their learning journeys and sometimes deliver them myself. Sometimes I feel I am neglecting my own learning and intellectual development. After finishing my MBA that I did on top of a full-time job I needed a break and it was one of the factors that made me decide to switch to a 4-day-week/36 instead of 40 hours at work. However, what I learnt in my MBA was probably about 80% things I was not really interested in, or even had an aversion to commit to memory, i.e. boring financial stuff. Last week I got the opportunity to attend a 3-day training in Zagreb on a topic that I am keenly interested in and that benefits me in my job. The facilitator was passionate and knowledgeable, the small group of 8 mature and likeable, so all in all, like a breath of fresh air. It was intense, but also very entertaining and it really felt nourishing for my brain.

Brave New World

I won't go into detail again that I was not prepared to "upgrade" to a new car yet, but had to. While there are some features that are very cool and practical and I love that so far, it has mainly run on electricity we "harvested" on our roof, I have used computers of varying sizes long enough to know they have their quirks and bugs. And this car is essentially a glorified computer on wheels. Apart from the fact that I find it pretty distracting when you have to consciously look at a touchscreen and click several times in order to turn on the music or change temperature settings rather than just blindly press a button or turn a dial, I have trust issues. When I mentioned to the Empress recently that I'd prefer a physical handbrake of some kind to an automatic feature that I don't even have to consciously klick, but that is supposed to activate automatically when I stop the engine after parking, she called this "a very old-fashioned point of view". Well, last week my trust issues were confirmed when all of a sudden my car decided to run amok mid-drive. Highflyer had picked me up in town and shortly into the drive an amber light appeared on the dashboard. We soon found out what it was: both front indicators had stopped working and just released a very aggressive noise whenever you wanted to signal where you were going. Not exactly the best in evening traffic, but at least the rear ones were still working. When we got out of the car and locked it, the front lights would not switch off. We tried all light settings and even got the confirmation that all lights were switched off, while they were clearly on (see photo). After a few attempts of stopping and starting the engine the lights eventually went out after 20 minutes or so. There were some other issues and so I had it checked at a garage the following day, but just like with a laptop that you force to shut down it was as if nothing had ever happened when I drove there, indicators working, etc. The service technicians ran some electronic tests and pushed updates, so let's hope for the best. I asked if such electronic issues were common and the guy nodded, saying "yep, unfortunately". Yaaay.

 

Snow Day

Last weekend we got plenty of snow in the East of Austria. It actually already started snowing while we were at a concert on Thursday night and when we left the venue, Vienna had been transformed into the type of winter wonderland you wish for in December, but rarely ever get. Highflyer and I stayed in the city as we had some errands to run and plans for the evening, but we were close to returning to the country house earlier in order to shovel snow in front of our house(s) so the neighbours further at the back of our cul-de-say would be able to pass. A friendly neighbour ended up tackling our share of the wet and heavy snow in the end so we could go back on Saturday afternoon as initially planned. Even though it doesn't take long for the snow to turn a slushy brown, Vienna with snow is magical while it lasts and visual component aside, I just love how quiet it turns. In particular the very busy street where my house is located. Even before I open the blinds I immediately know when it has snowed at night because it feels as if you are wearing noise-cancelling headphones: the usual traffic noise is muffled by about 200% and everything and everyone seems to move in slow motion. Well, as far as humans are concerned this is due to caution because of the slippery pavement, but indulge me in romanticising it.

 

Busy Bee

Due to our own, um, advanced age, more or less all of my friends have now either lost at least one of their parents or have had some kind of health concern related to them by now. Last week a friend whose parents are both still alive lamented the fact that they do not really have a circle of friends any more as their closest friends have sadly died already and so they really rely on one another and neither of them really has a hobby other than watching TVand looking after the grandchildren. She asked me how my mother (78 years old) was coping, now that she has been widowed for half a year. I am so incredibly grateful that despite not having quite the same amount of energy she used to have, she is still a powerhouse and example of resilience, discipline and resourcefulness that puts her daughter to shame. While we text more often than we used to when Dad (who basically was her "PR spokesperson" and the main "WhatsApper" of their household) was alive, we have kept up our biweekly phone dates and whenever I call her it is hard to keep track of all her appointments, some of them arranged very spontaneously. An account of a typical afternoon of hers sounds like this: "I had originally planned to meet X for a gallery walk downtown, but then her husband's hospital appointment got moved so she cancelled on me short notice, but just as I had hung up, Y called to ask if I had any plans for the afternoon and I went to her for a glass of wine before we headed to the cinema. Her friend Z whom I know from our Qi Gong class was also there and gave us a lift." Needless to say, her energy combined with her interests and vast circle of friends and acquaintances is a huge relief to me, who lives more than 300 km away. One's attitude really makes such a difference in old age and I really hope I will be like her (minus the widow part, hopefully).

 

Comfort Zone in Grey

On January 9th I took home "Hasi" as my new car is called (because it is a VW Golf Rabbit and "Hasi" means bunny in German). As the car dealership is a 20+-minute drive away I needed Highflyer to drive me there. Had we known that it would be the worst snow day so far this winter, we would definitely have postponed the pick-up date. As it was, it ended up being a pretty frightening maiden cruise having already passed several crash-sites on the motorway on our outbound drive. I parked the car and then it stayed there for literally 3 weeks straight without being moved by anyone. Since then, we have been to Carinthia and back with Hasi and I'm pretty comfortable now driving this fancy hight-tech "smartphone-on-wheels" that feels like a quantum leap after my old car. I'm still not at ease as a passenger, though, but this is the case in any car post-accident when I constantly expect somebody to drive into us from the right as happened to me. I had been very opposed to (driving) automatic cars and since I knew I wanted to get a hybrid (petrol/electric) car, which only comes as AT, I was not happy about this. However, just like everybody had told me, I got used to it immediately and now I just need to decide whether I want to endure the horrible orchestra of beeps when I park in a tight space or whether I rather should switch all assistant sounds off.

Void

 

Last week was my first birthday without my dad, who was always the first person to send greetings via WhatsApp, usually either a picture of flowers (from his garden or a shop-bought bouquet that was already waiting for me) or some sort of witty collage. Like in most families, my mum has always been the main "rememberer-and-procurer-of-gifts", but nonetheless.

It's the little things where I notice his absence most, like when I see or hear something original that would have been right up his alley, like this building detail with bears on a facade in Vienna's 9th district that I spotted a few details ago and which I would have typically sent to him immediately with few words, not expecting more than a thumbs-up emoji in return...