5 minutes
Luckily I have many of memorable moments captured in pictures. In 5 minutes, here’s the pics that I’d save to help me remember 2010.
My friend Vera says January 2nd is the worst possible day to have a birthday. She says everyone is all partied out by then. We celebrated her 50th birthday at Pettaval. It was a great day with some of the best friends anyone could hope for.
2010 turned out to be the end of an era. For all my life I’ve lived with dogs – with the exception of a few years in my late teens/early 20s when I was at uni and living in flats. This year, the last of my dogs, Comet, died. I really, really miss having a dog around the place. His ashes still sit on the table waiting to be spread. I guess I keep putting it off – my last link to my last dog. Makes me sad.
Geoff and Johnnie are great mates – friends first, as well as people I love working with. They make me laugh, inspire, and encourage me. Little did Johnnie and I know when this photo was taken in January that we would get to work together often in 2010, in his country and mine, in Sri Lanka and Finland. What an adventure. I hope to continue working with both of them in 2011.
What a shock it was when I got that phone call to say my long-time friend and mentor, Brian Bainbridge had died. I was asked to let the worldwide open space community know the sad news. Through my tears, I felt privileged to hold the space for people from around the world to share their stories and memories of Brian. His funeral was churchy (after all, he was a priest) and reflected little of Brian the man. I so wanted to wrench the microphone from the Archbishop and tell the 1500+ people gathered to celebrate Brian’s life about the Brian I knew. It was enough though to retreat to the local Chinese restaurant, sit in a circle, have yum cha and share our stories.
Myanmar (Burma) was a revelation. A country I never expected to visit. Beautiful. Wonderful people. Dodgy government. Each morning I would walk in the expansive park opposite the hotel where I was staying. People would be gathered in groups, exercising to music blaring from speakers that had seen better days. The highlight was the light that shone from the rising sun on the dominating Shwedagon pagoda, it’s golden spire reflected in the still waters of the lake. I was spellbound every time I saw this.
Playback Theatre was a continuing theme throughout 2010 – a weekend workshop in late January, and another in November for me to learn more about this improv form. In between using playback in workshops, and connecting with other enthusiasts in Amsterdam at the Applied Improv Conference.
A holiday in Heron Island was magical – even if it was a substitute for a planned camping trip to the north-west of Western Australia, which was cancelled because my husband needed to have an operation. Hanging out on a coral island right on the Great Barrier Reef, with blue skies and sunshine and world-class diving right off the beach, that’s what I call a holiday.
Five weeks. A little work, an improv conference, travelling, eating, drinking, connecting – what a great time I had in Europe. And in London in particular. And a particular highlight, from a whole lot of highlights, was working with Simo Routarinne and Johnnie Moore delivering a pre-conference workshop on status at the European Facilitators’ Conference in Finland. We created a fabulous workshop in the best traditions of improv.
These are the things I would most want to remember of 2010.
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I’m taking part, with 3000+ others, in a 31-day blogging challenge called #reverb10 to reflect on the past year and explore hopes for the coming year, based on daily prompts from authors. December 15 – 5 Minutes Imagine you will completely lose your memory of 2010 in five minutes. Set an alarm for five minutes and capture the things you most want to remember about 2010.