Forward

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Wie geht's?

I'm off to an induction day today. I start a new job next week so this is my first opportunity to note down the important things I need to know as I transition to a new place of work (Harry S. Truman's advice to 'shut up, watch, and learn' is key).

This is exciting, but I know plenty of people in my whanau that wouldn't be thrilled with this prospect. Change and disruption to routines are things I need from time to time. No one who knows me is surprised that I have moved from one thing, which I enjoyed, to another, which comes with risk.

Standing still, and avoiding the need for fresh challenges is not part of my make-up.

What I learned from today will feature on my next Baggy Trousers' post.

Love and peace - Wozza

I was meant to know the plot, but all I knew was what I saw (Joan Didion)

Photo by Mounish Raja on Unsplash

Wie geht's?

Reading Joan Didion's The White Album has been informative. Within the opening pages, she uses a sobering phrase 'what would probably be the middle of my life' and I realise a few things. 

In my late sixties, the middle part is done and I am heading towards the later part of my life, but I am still 'a competent enough member of some community or another' (as Joan puts it). Partly the reason why I don't want to retire any time soon. That said, I do realise I am at the pre-retirement stage of my career.

The further realisation is that I am at a unique time in my life. Still employable! I'm about to start a new job - was that an attempt to prove to myself that I still could, you may ask. Not consciously, would be my answer. However, I am no longer frequently named. As in: I no longer have (or need) a fancy title. 

Many people asked me what title I would have at my new school and they were a bit nonplussed when I said that my senior management/leadership years were behind me. Never say never, but, like Winston Peters, I am happy to be where I am at.

The later part of life also means our nest has been empty for a long time now. Our children, who live in four different countries, are brilliant human beings, living their lives. We have three grandchildren, soon to be four. This year marks our 42nd wedding anniversary. 

I look around at my record collection and realise I will soon need to do what fellow collectors of my age are thinking of doing - downsizing it. 

These days, I know I am much more careful about buying new records (but not books). On a recent mini-break to Wellington I bought 5 records and 5 books. In the past I would have bought 10 records and 2 books.

Partly the reason for posting about my collection on my Goo Goo G'Joob blog was to establish a list of albums that are meh (i.e. 2 stars) in my reviewing criteria. The idea was that would quickly sort the wheat from the chaff. A cull is coming!

Back to Joan for a final thought: 'We live entirely...by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the "ideas" with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience'.

Life, it seems to me, is about making sense and then peace with the ever-shifting phantasmagoria as we go. At least, that's what I attempt to do.

Love and peace - Wozza

Rubus Cuneifolius

Photo by Alisa Kenley on Unsplash

Wie geht's?

The latest round in the blackberry wars has ended and...myah ha har! Wozza won in a technical knock-out!

The battle raged on for three days. It began at dawn. Actually. After breakfast. So around 7.00 for 7.30. At times, Wozza was down. The heat, the thorns, the ripped arms (as in cuts, not, ha ha - muscles).

In the end the box thorn needed confronting to root out the nefarious big daddy blackberry roots but rooted out they were.

Now the burn pile is all blackberry, waiting for autumn. 

It's extremely pesky stuff though. Somewhere it's quietly bidding its time out there in Maple Grove. Surveying its options. Watching...and waiting...

Love and peace - Wozza

The day of nothing

Wie geht's?

Jade gave me this terrific children's book for Christmas. Micol Ostow has fused together a plethora of Seinfeld escapades into a storyline about something.

Basic premise is that Jerry's mom tells him off for wanting to do nothing, so Jerry goes along with Elaine's desire to see a friend's baby (You've got to see the baby).

I loved it and offered to read it to Jacky, but she was disinclined to acquiesce to my suggestion. I believe she said something along the lines of "No thanks, I don't really like Seinfeld". Sharp intake of breath!

I'm not sure, but could that be grounds for divorce right there?

I don't get it - how can anyone not like Jerry? He's so adorable.

What I do get is how annoying I am with quotes and references to popular culture. 

Seinfeld scenes and lines leap into my brain on many occasions - some appropriate, some not. Not only that but my brain keeps a constant barrage of song lyrics on tap. Not only that but films, poetry, old adverts and other pulp media references are loitering just below the surface in my brain at all times. They rise to the top layer and speed themselves on their merry way to my mouth with alarming regularity.

Either that or I grin, or worse, laugh. Forget about a resting bitch face, those are my default settings.

Super annoying. I get it. Is it shallow (that 'pool' line from Elaine* just came to me - see what I mean)? Is that wrong? Should I not do that?

This is something I've been aware of for a very long time (like using song lyrics for titles). Here's a poem I wrote a long time ago:

Warren Peace (symbol) 1994

a complicated pun which like the sloping vase in the picture in our bedroom defies gravity every day of its life i nonetheless like it because it contains the enigmatic dichotomy which is in fact my life or has been for the last thirtysomething lifetimes it is existing in a sea of contradictions of yin yang on a global scale that sustains me during the long nights when the wolf howls and so back to the pun which clues the reader into the basic personality of diplomatic friend protecting the near and dear ones i am the man with the unorthodox style which is nevertheless successful nevertheless is itself an interesting expression containing the same contradiction where positive and negative live together in close proximity and harmony i digress again why is it i wonder i cannot keep my mind from fracturing into tiny shards of song lines what i really wanted to leave was a reminder of who i am and why i was here there and everywhere i guess i have done so in my own inimitable fashion still the warren peace symbol haunts me it demands further thought but that is what the future is for comma

Love and peace - WNP

* Elaine to Jerry - 'Sometimes when I think you're the shallowest man I've ever met, you somehow manage to drain a little more out of the pool'.

You've been a jerk for what it's worth; a friend is what I need. Now I know that you're the fool and I am finally free - skullduggery (Steppenwolf)

Wie geht's?

Outlast is an American survival reality competition television series on Netflix that takes place in Alaska (don't they all). There aren't too many rules aside from the one that participants, who tend to be alpha/lone wolf types, have to be in a team. Team swapping can happen at any time.

Ma Belle recommended it, along with Naked and Afraid which we thought was just too silly. We loved watching Season one and two of Outlast though. Yes, there are spoilers approaching.

What I enjoyed most of season one was watching how quickly it turned into a Lord of the Flies scenario with one team turning to underhand and despicable acts to win. The winning team gets to share the prize of one million dollars - so there is a greed incentive for the players. After a few episodes the morally suspect and/or the evil doers start to emerge.

As I watched the eight episodes unwind, I was really hoping that the team who indulged in skullduggery didn't win. Really hoping. My moral sensitivities were well and truly affronted by that skullduggery. One competitor even tapped out because of what happened to others - to him I had the utmost respect.

In the end right won out and justice was served, but it was close. The person and the team who stole their competitors' sleeping bags were defeated by a team who did nothing to sabotage others.

That picture above, used by Netflix to publicise the show, is interesting. It has two of the four teams facing off against each other. Team Charlie is on the opposite bank to Team Alpha who have their backs to us as viewers (at least one of whom, the one in the middle, is a woman).

Who are the goodies and who are the baddies do you think?

The three men look vaguely menacing (one carries a bow and arrows), but the woman is also a hunter (she wears a quiver of arrows). She's also the only one not wearing a beanie.

As it turned out these were the last two teams and one outlasted the other. The final episode where they were in a race to reach a finish point was especially exciting. 

Season 3 is not yet available on Netflix but I'll be looking out for it.

Love and peace - Wozza

Now a young man's gone, yet his legend lingers on (The Beach Boys)

Wie geht's?

Recently, Jacky and I attended the funeral of a whanau member (Sam Moore) who had passed away in tragic circumstances in a car accident on the 17th of December.

I'm not good at funerals. I can feel myself withdraw from what's happening and all the funerals I've attended in my life start stacking up. I can't help it.

For good or for ill, I was spared attending funerals as a young child. I reflected on that fact while watching Sam's four young children climbing on his coffin in front of me. Times have changed and this now seems a perfectly normal thing to do.

As an adult I have had to attend quite a few funerals for young people, including former students, 19 years ago George Moore and now, 19 years later, his younger brother, Sam.

As we drove to New Plymouth for a family Christmas, the day after the funeral, the radio at one point played Tom Petty's Free Fallin' and I was immediately back at the Howick funeral for former Macleans College student Andrea Holmes (also killed in a road accident).

The two former students who took their own lives also flashed into my brain - one when I was Principal at Stratford High School, the other a student I taught at Woodford House.

Sam's funeral was the fourth in the Moore family and the third in as many years. The first tragedy was George, which his parents never really recovered from. 

That kind of history is devastating and tough to recover from (sadly, Tim never did). But recover from it we must and will (I know something about this).

Sam was made of solid stuff - a deep loyalty, an amazing work ethic, and a fierce love for his family drove him. As he grew up to be a man, he turned himself into the best father possible. His story is inspirational in that regard.

I will miss you Sam. Rest in peace.

Love and peace to Jen (also made of solid stuff), and their children - Jordan, Rebecca, Elizabeth, George, and Alexandra.

When I grow up to be a man will I dig the same things that turn me on as a kid (The Beach Boys)

Father and son - December 19, 1984

Wie geht's?

Last week's Jewels For The Thirsty mentioned that Keegan's birthday completes this subset of the Purdys for 2025, appropriately begun by Jacky in April.

[In order: Jacky; Samantha; me; Jade; Adam; Keegan]

Keegan's origin story is here and it's worth re-reading, even though it was written in 2016!

Keegan turned 41 last week and that just seems wrong - I can vividly recall holding him in the palm of my hand (as I wrote in that origin story): 

The whole experience was completely overwhelming and draining. Jacky slept, while I sat beside her in an armchair and held onto this new life in my hands and was drenched in pride and tenderness for both Jacky and Keegan.

It's one of those moments. 

So, to think that happened 41 years ago is a mind blown moment.

Happy birthday Keegan!

Merry Christmas to all the Purdettes, their families and partners!

Love and peace, now and forever - Dad