River

There's almost too much to do and see around Melbourne. Covering everything is impossible. We didn't include Phillip Island in our original itinerary. We changed the plan at the end - sorry, after the cut-off time for cancellation of hotel book with refund.

Such flexibility on my part is uncommon: my survival framework has been built on the harmony of clearly written plans. For that sort of impromptu schedule change on the fly, I can't. Or won't.

It speaks to the nature of my stubborn head. But then I read the book by Daniel Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson - The Whole-Brain Child - and learned about the metaphoric river of well-being. Children are thought to float along in their canoe, with one bank representing chaos, the other being bank of rigidity. Near the bank of rigidity, the water smells stagnant and stinky. Another extreme, on the other bank, is a total lack of control. We're zigzagging back and forth between the two.

The easiest way is to integrate the two.

There's more buried treasure hidden in Phillip Island. I consoled myself with this thought: we cancelled the hotel booking at the last minute to make our trip there to see the little penguins (Eudyptula minor), the smallest ones and probably the cutest on the planet, waddling ashore at dusk. From their chaos in the rough sea and back to the comfy home.