Week 28/2024: Listening and learning

Week of 8 July 2024

This was a week for listening and learning and reflecting. And for roasting sweet potatoes.

Listening and learning

NAIDOC Week

7-14 July was NAIDOC Week, which is a week to “celebrate and recognise the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples”. This year’s theme is “Keep the fire burning! Blak, Loud and Proud”. You can see the beautiful poster designed by Samuawgadhalgal artist Deb Belyea here.

It’s a timely reminder that I live on the land of the muwinina people, who did not survive British colonisation of lutruwita/Tasmania.

My workplace took part in the NAIDOC Week ‘Yarn on Country’ with Aboriginal employees. This live-streamed conversation was an opportunity for us to “listen deep with open hearts, be open to learn, be willing and honest to self-reflect”.

A strong theme was the participants’ connections to Country, and they shared what this means for them. It was a very emotional conversation and I thank the four speakers for their honesty and vulnerability in telling us their stories.

We were also invited to reflect on what actions we wanted to take to support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples by creating our own signal fire.

I feel what I can best do is to continue to listen, learn and continue to educate myself.

One thing I learned this week was the origin of the term ‘blak’. This spelling is used by many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as an act of reclaiming the word ‘black’, which is often used as a racial slur. The first person to promote this spelling was the artist Destiny Deacon in the 1990s.

Sunrise walks

As I wrote last week, I’ve been continuing building my habit of morning walking. This is intended to have two benefits: (a) movement and (b) sunlight to help regulate my circadian rhythm and hormones to help me get better sleep.

I set out to do two walks every day. The first one would be without any distractions to give me time to think and reflect, as recommended by Daniel Sih in his book Spacemaker.

The second walk would give me an extra hit of daylight. (I won’t say sunlight. This is winter in Tasmania after all.) I’d use that as an opportunity to listen to one of the many online courses I’ve signed up for but never have time to do. I’m thinking that taking in the material while I’m walking, even if I can’t make notes, is better than leaving the courses sitting on the shelf.

The morning walks are going well. I did it every day this week, and on Monday I went to the beach to look at the sunrise.

The second walk isn’t going as well but this is a new habit so it will take time to establish. (And the times I have available to walk during the day are different every day, so it’s harder to fit it in some days.)

It’s a work in progress.

Week 28 summary

Habit tracker

• 9.30 shutdown: 7/7 days
• 8,000 steps: 7/7 days

What was the best thing about this week?

Having a long overdue catchup for Sunday lunch with Lil Sis and Mr Tall.

What did I notice this week?

The local currawong population descending on the chickens’ yard.

What did I learn this week?

Kramstable and I have a ritual on Sunday nights in the school holidays, making macaroni cheese for dinner. This tradition dates back to when Kramstable was very small and I used to make him ‘cheese and noodles’ for dinner. It was ‘special’ cheese and noodles which included pureed cauliflower because this was his ‘toddler don’t eat veggies’ stage.

Since then, Kramstable’s tastes have changed and I don’t have to hide vegetables in his dinner any more (ha). But Sunday night mac and cheese in the school holidays is still a thing.

We’ve experimented with several different recipes over the years, which I’m sure the mac and cheese purists would condemn us for. This includes an apple version, a couple that Masterchef contestants have made in mac and cheese challenges, and one from Honeychild based on James Hemings’ recipe.

We also make a version that Kramstable developed when he was in primary school. It’s based on the sneaky hidden vegetables recipe but it doesn’t hide them. This includes adding pureed sweet potato, grated carrot, frozen peas and chopped leafy greens.

We’d always made the puree by boiling the sweet potato, but after the wonderful roasted sweet potato bread I made last week, I wondered whether this would work in the mac and cheese too.

Turns out it does.

I made extra roast sweet potatoes at dinner the night before, mashed them and added them to the mac and cheese. Instant flavour improvement! I’ll never boil them again.

What am I reading?

• Hagitude by Sharon Blackie
• The Conscious Style Guide by Karen Yin