Or

I spent weeks making a choice that truly required much less time and effort than I ended up giving it.

It renewed my awareness that I, and perhaps most other humans, do not like the concept of "Or" very much.

We prefer And.

We have a hard time making a final pronouncement because we know it will mean turning away from all other options.

In this case, it was a simple matter of when I would fly to which Southeast Asian city. That was all. But still I struggled, drafted plans, scribbled them out, started over, repeated until the dusty corner of my brain that once knew a few things about programming screamed that I should JUST BREAK THE INFINITE LOOP ALREADY.

The difficulty came from accepting that if I chose this flight, I would be in Singapore and not Australia on that day. If I chose that flight, I would be in Thailand but not Singapore or Australia. Then I saw the silliness of it all because if I wanted to concern myself with all the places I wasn't going to be at any given time, well, why stop at three? It would take me a while to think my way through a whole globe's worth of cities and countries and those little hidden corners one can only discover through getting lost.

Taken during my first week living in the granted wish

So the choices have been made, and I hope I will have learnt my lesson: a little deliberation is prudent, but often I just have to push myself off balance and see to which side of the wall I fall. Surely I know by now that whichever way I go, I will never be separated from all that's good in my life.

Maybe falling isn't the best analogy for someone as accident prone as me to use, but it seems appropriate to the context and picture.

Resolution of the moment: Think less. Fall more. But not literally, for a change.

A story, a song

If you see a girl with a treble clef at her throat or a grand piano around her wrist, this might be the story behind it.

My being at the markets is a rare occurrence, and my buying things (non-food, non-essential) things at them is even rarer because Sydney craft markets tend to be expensive. But on this cloudy, UV-heavy Saturday I had set aside a small amount of mad money to be used in the event that I saw something I liked.

Well, that didn't happen.

I did see and buy something -- two things -- but not because I liked them. It was so much more than liking them at sight; I knew they were mine long before I even saw them. Does that sound like something a stalker would say? Fine, then. As long as all I'm stalking is small objects of 925 silver, I think society can handle it.

For a few weeks, I'd been wanting a new item of jewellery that had something to do with music -- something that I don't just love, but rely on. Come to think of it, I see music the way my mother viewed coffee. I can quote her, practically verbatim: "Coffee is my everything. It gets me up in the morning and helps me to sleep at night. When I'm at work coffee perks me up and helps me stay focused."

Hearing variations of the same theme on almost a daily basis for years is bound to make one memorise that theme.

But just substitute "music" in there and you have me. OK, I know music isn't my everything because I also have dance and chocolate and reading and lavender and fluffy animals and all the other things that have the same effects on me, but music means a lot to me. I know I am in really, really bad shape when I won't sing and won't listen to a song. Ironically, the cure for that state usually involves forcing myself to do either one or both.

Anyway, I had been reflecting for a few weeks on how much music means to me, and I'm a girl, so my mind tends to wander over to jewellery when considering ways to commemorate something so significant. I did my research, but everything I saw was either cheap and hideously distasteful (according to my taste) or exorbitantly exquisite. Since I am at present, but hopefully not for much longer, still a Mostly Unemployed Student, I couldn't afford the latter and wouldn't settle for the former. I stopped looking and decided it could wait until that one day when everything would fit into place and I'd see something I could afford and could wear in public without first having to sign a blood pact with some clan organisation.

So, when I spotted the treble clef in a tray of silver odds and ends, you may imagine that I felt someone had placed it there for me. The price was friendly, and I got out my wallet to pay. And then my eyes fell on...

... the grand piano.

A tiny silver grand piano.

See, another dream of mine, years older than the one of owning a piece of music-themed jewellery, is to own a grand piano.

Although that most probably will happen one day, clearly it hasn't happened yet. And given the way things had been going of late, my faith as it stood that warm December day was rather too depleted to reach the grand-piano compartment in my trunkful of dreams.

I knew I had to get the piano, too. I got the two charms for a song (bet you saw that one coming!), less than I'd budgeted for just one. And, along with the answer to my recent quest, I got a hint to my future, a key to not being so Cranky and Easily Upset over facing my post-Master's future.

I'd gone to the market that morning to accompany a friend who'd placed it on her Must Do While In Sydney list. I'd prepared myself to browse and not buy. I'd allocated an amount of spending money so small that I wasn't expecting to find anything in that price range. In the same way, I'd shrunk the space around my self. I'd made myself into something that filled the cracks in my clients' and friends' lives, but didn't have a lot left over for me. I concluded that what I wanted might have to wait, so in the meantime, why not treat it like an aimless walk through a market full of beautiful objects that I couldn't afford?

As I walked away with my new treasures, cheap trinkets to anybody else, I saw how it was about so much more than jewellery. I learnt that day about knowing that my dreams are remembered. And that the desires of my heart are recorded, even when I've given up on receiving them.

If you see a girl with a treble clef at her throat or a grand piano around her wrist, this might be the story behind it.

Light at the end

I swallowed the tears as I watched the effects of a brain tumour at work. I swallowed my questions and vented my faith. I swallowed the "why?" as I looked at the "this is".

And finally, it's over.

"In this world, you will have trouble," was the promise. That's not the usual pep talk you'd get from a leader. Fortunately, there's more. "But take heart! I have overcome the world."