Week 35

Endings are hard. Uncertainty is harder.

Hello Ladybirds and Ladybugs,

The other week I wrote about a tram incident and a frog that cannot land. As I was writing that newsletter, I remember spending ages trying to think of a final line that would wrap everything up neatly. I couldn’t make that final connection, and it left the whole thing feeling a little limp. I’ve talked before about endings, and how important I think they are — and how hard they are. In mine and Rachel’s relationship, the frog that cannot land has become a little meme. And this week she said something that made it all click. The frog is really great at leaping, but not so great at landing. Great at beginnings, but not endings.

I’m going to put myself in the frog’s legs and jump. I’ve started a comic above. I don’t know where it’s going. I don’t know how long it will be. I hope you’ll come along for the ride.

This Week I Learned…

…how to live 4JOY.

Over the weekend, I took an Uber to a party with my friend Matt. The licence plate of the car we were waiting for was 4JOY. When we got in, I asked if it was because she drove 4 joy, and she said yes, though most people assumed her name was Joy.

I once had a friend whose parents named him Joy. But he didn’t like it and changed it as a child. In that way, for him, Joy was fleeting.

Her name wasn’t Joy. Driving Uber was her joy. She was a psychologist during the day and liked to unwind by going fishing. During the pandemic, she didn’t have access to her usual fishing spots, which were outside her 5km radius, so she needed another reason to leave the house and decided to give Uber a go. She found she loved hearing people’s stories, getting a little sliver of their lives. She said it added interesting layers to her work, and it also became much of her social life.

We got an overview of her life: born in Russia, she had spent most of her life in Dubai. After marrying an Australian, he insisted she get her permanent residency, and she ended up here after the recession drove all her expat clients out of the UAE.

Her children had hated it at first (the Australian kids all swore too much), but when she had a great opportunity to move back to Dubai, they wanted to stay. So here she was.

At first, she said, she didn’t tell any of her friends that she was an Uber driver. She was a bit embarrassed about what they might say. But over time the experience changed her, and she loved it so much she had to start talking about it. Her friends appreciated the changes in her too. They said that in Dubai she had walked around with “her nose in the air.” Now she was more humble. She was exposed to such a range of life experiences outside her bubble. She listened more intently, got more pleasure out of small things. In some ways, I think this is also just part of growing older, but no doubt exposure to different people — like exposure to different literature — opens your mind and your heart.

That reminds me of what I think my subway take would be: after graduating high school, everyone should have to do a year of civic service. Like mandatory military service, except instead it’s community-building. Getting out and helping people, working in places outside your comfort zone. Building things.

One time, she gave a lift to a man who was on his way to beat up another man who had slept with his girlfriend. She told him not to do anything stupid, and she waited outside for 20 minutes. When he didn’t come back out, she assumed everything must be working itself out and left. I thought that was a strange assumption — literally anything could have happened — but she went on to say that was the hardest part of the job: making instant connections with people and then having them disappear from your life. She said she always hoped she would run into people again so they could finish their story.

Often, if a person was nervous because they were being dropped off for a big performance or speech, having a baby, or preparing for a break-up, she would worry about them, wonder how they’d gone with their big life event. Sometimes people would ask for her phone number so they could text her afterwards. Presumably her psychologist’s training told her that wasn’t a great idea, so instead she asked them to send her a $1 tip if it all went well. Then she would know, and feel some closure.

I understood how she felt. Our trip had already ended and we were parked outside the party, wrapping up the conversation, and I still had so many questions for her: had she ever taken the same person twice and gotten the end to their story? How had her Uber experience influenced her psychological practice? What are the best fishing spots in Melbourne?

But perhaps in life, as opposed to writing, the biggest lesson isn’t learning how to end things in a satisfying way — it’s learning how to be comfortable living with uncertainty.

Even though we were just going to a party and there was nothing big to be nervous about, we tapped in a $1 tip, hoping she would know it was simply 4JOY.

Guess who went back to school this week?

I’m doing a Free TAFE course in Teaching and Assessment and the first day was today and it was very long. In a few weeks I’ll already be qualified to teach at TAFE or VET (with supervision) so if you know anywhere that’s looking hit me up! I am competent in graphic design and illustration and just, like, all media and production. And I can now make tiramisu.

I’m looking forward to writing very few notes and instead filling notepads with many doodles, as has always been the case with every bit of study I’ve ever undertaken.

The tree train must keep moving and this one I’m thinking of as a kind of decentralised tree.

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This week, Rachel was on a panel at the Fitzroy Town Hall on the topic of Matrescence, which by all accounts went very well. It was recorded so I will post the link when it comes through. In the meantime she’s also going to be at this event in a few weeks, which sounds very fun if you like quizzes and word games etc!

Triple share score.

Peace!!