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WAITIN' AND HOPIN' (SING IT DUSTY)

REMEMBER my flashy green glass and marcasite earrings ? I've been thinking about special things and why, when something is deemed speci...

1960s nightgown (detail)

REMEMBER my flashy green glass and marcasite earrings? I've been thinking about special things and why, when something is deemed special, we tend to distance ourselves from it, wait for it, long for it, even resign ourselves to never having it.

By way of Pip, I found the podcasts of The Happiness Project, and low and behold the first one I listened to was about author Gretchen Rubin's grandmother and a bottle of perfume she had, full, up until the day she died. In saving it for a special occasion it was never used.

It's much like this nightdress my mother salvaged from her local tip shop in a basket of giveaways. It's not been used. It's so fragile had it been used I can't imagine it would be with us today. I imagine the woman who owned this, saved it for a special evening, perhaps with a special someone. What happened? Did she decide it couldn't be worn? Why? I'm sure she would have looked, and felt, a knockout in it.

The unused perfume and lingerie has had me thinking about what it means to "wait for the right time".

I'm reading Australian author Cate Kennedy's book Sing and Don't Cry: A Mexican Journal. This particular work has had me nodding, quietly weeping and tsk-tsking, all at different times.

In it Kennedy dissects the Spanish meaning of the word "wait".

"The word for 'wait' in Spanish is the same as the word for 'hope'," Kennedy writes.

So rather than "waiting" for, in her case the irritations of living in any developing world, she learned to "hope".

"Hoping for the Post Office to open, hoping for the photocopier to be fixed, hoping the train will move so the traffic can flow again."

It's a shift, a small shift in thinking, a shift I once had a handle on while living as an aid volunteer in Vietnam, but I feel like I've forgotten it. I've become impatient and selfish. I grumble about my job, my wages, my commute - the job and wages "fantastic" and "more-than-adequate". The commute, well at least I'm not walking all day just to bring water to my family.

Oh, I could go on, but I won't, I'll just say I've been thinking ... and hoping.

Please, what's something you've got stashed away that you've been, another cliche, saving for a rainy day? Why?

1960s night gown

Oh, and that special something I told you was coming my way arrived. Thank you Sophie. I'm not saving any of it for good. I know you'll understand.

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