Sarah Wilson

sunday life: in which i declutter my books

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This week I had a good hard think about why I have kept an unread copy of Tolstoy’s War and Peace on my bookshelf for 17 years.  This small awakening prompted a frenzied decluttering of dead wood*. Small awakenings can do this.

I’ve been on a decluttering mission lately. This latest chapter was prompted by my appearing in one of those magazine lifestyle shoots, “At Home with ….”. You know, the ones where the subject nurses a mug of coffee at their kitchen island in one shot. And snuggles up on the couch in distressed jeans and bare feet in another.

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sunday life: how to do an e-tox

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This week I officially, no false-run-ups-about-it, start my e-tox. To see if banishing email addiction makes life cleaner, more elegant and, straight up, better*.

I had this revelation recently: my relationship with email is not unlike one I once had with a particularly clingy guy. This guy – let’s call him Outlook – constantly demanded to know where I was and why hadn’t I replied to his barrage of messages, and, no, it’s no excuse I was out with friends because I had Blackberry. He expected acknowledgement of all attention-seeking communications, even when there was no dignified answer available (“Um, glad you were just thinking of me”; “Oh, yes, there it is, another smiley emoticon!”). And he’d ping when he walked in the room. Although I think that was more the cumulative sound of my every pore bristling.

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sunday life: in which i have a colonic!!!!

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This week I have a colonic… to make life better.

My mum didn’t know what a colonic was, so I’ll spell it out without tempting euphemism. I went to a place dressed up in white porceline as a clinic (down an alleyway, up some stairs, pretending to look for the Dentists’ Guild of Australia or some such) and had someone flush my bowels with xx L of water using a hose up the jaxy.

My mum also couldn’t comprehend why someone would do such a thing, so I’ll paint a loose picture. Most people who aim to be healthy eat too much crap in spite of themselves. Crap builds up. It sticks to our insides and blocks stuff, including the absorption of nutrients. So we eat more crap because we feel crap. Ergo, a crap rut. The moderation route back to good habits seems so dreary and long for this generation of insta-fix-its. Ergo, the hose.

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sunday life: how gratefulness helps my life

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In the aftermath of the recent MasterChef finale, I want to share one special observation with you. Just after she was announced winner you’ll recall Julie told everyone – the contestants, the chefs, me, the judges, the crew – how grateful she was we’d helped change her life.

On set we’d stoically held it together to that point. But this, well, this released something burning and goosepimply in the collective. And we all burst into tears, like a finger had been pulled from the hole in the bulging dyke.

Tom cried. George cried. So did Manu the grande boeuf-y French chef, and the cameramen. I cried and from what I hear, it was at this precise moment everyone at home watching cried. It was awkward, but oddly liberating, yeah?

The same, I hear, happens in footy changerooms after big matches. I love it. The captain gives his rousing thank you speech and the players, almost on cue, cry. Geelong captain Tom Harley told me about it recently: “We don’t cry any other time. Something weird and deep happens…I don’t know what it is.”

I do. It’s The Gratitude Effect.

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sunday life: in which I learn to sleep

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This week I went to the foundations of a life better lived and road-tested sleep. You know, to see if this mortal coil is sweeter with it.

I’ve spent vast tracts of my life not sleeping. I went for five months in my early twenties on 2-3 hours a night. It turned me, almost literally, into a teapot. Then I had a phase where I’d wake at 3.25am. I’d fret and turn the pillow over and over looking for the cool side until the Currawongs drawled that lonely, first-light wauk-wauk-waaugh, a sound that sends us insomniacs into a tizz. It heralds the point of no returning to sleep. Throw in the blanket. Day is officially here.

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sunday life: the masterchef lesson

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I should be honest with you all. This week I have not been out there treading the path to self-betterment I committed to in writing this column. Nope, I’ve been stuck in a kitchen overseeing amateur cooks whisk and flambé their way down the homestretch to become MasterChef, a term only months ago was confused with a make of crudely desiccated oregano. It’s finale week of the country’s most successful reality TV series. Six start it, one finishes it. And, oh, the tears!

Reality TV’s a trip. Much artifice goes into “enabling” the reality. The judges and I are strapped in with cords and mic packs, our ruffles and cravats propped up with layers of Hollywood Tape. More than 150 crew steer the unfolding realness from behind eight cameras and a dozen editing suites. We film 12 hours a day; Tuesday night’s show is shot on a Saturday; and in the heat of it all we’ve forgotten what season it is. It’s unreal.  But not entirely not-real, if you get my double-negative drift.

So, as many a monk apprentice has asked though the ages, where’s the self-betterment lesson in this crazy fulcrum of reality? Said the chief monk to his underling, right in front of you my child. In the everyday.

My lesson this week has been about everyday mindfulness. I’m not sure if you pick up on this at home. Sometimes the contestants cook mind-bogglingly great food. Sometimes they cook, in the words of contestant Chris (hat, tatts), utter crap. And what determines which way the croquembouche crumbles is the contestant’s mindfulness.

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sunday life: my first column

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Years ago I dated a burly tradesman who committed himself daily to living by Eleanor Roosevelt’s mantra, “Do something every day that scares you”. He had it scrawled on a piece of Foolscap Feint, Blu-Tacked above the cistern of his toilet. And would use it to motivate himself to leave jobs when they became toxic and to introduce himself to strangers in the laundry at parties. Mostly just to see what happened next.

I jotted down this piece of toot inspiration at the time and I’ve been meaning – unsuccessfully – to live it ever since, in the same way I’ve been meaning to clean the venetians in a bathtub of vinegar since reading it in Spotless and make chicken stock with those damn bones in the freezer.

But on this Sunday in June I’m finally taking the plunge. Every week, on this page, I’ll be trying out new ideas that challenge me and you to make the 85-odd years allotted to us on this planet matter more…and to see what happens next.

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