Author: Phyllis Foundis

Let your mind wander. 

It’s good for you. Good for others. 

It can be liberating. Aimless. And all manner of WTF. And yet, every last jellied-ounce of firing neuron is necessary.

Sure. Zipping off to a random thought may not be on par with boarding a plane and travelling to exotic climes stuffed with sun and sweet strangers but…

…morning rush hour and as I hurry I hear a rhythmic tap-tap behind me. I turn to see a man in a suit. He charges past, his polished lace-ups the source of the tap-tap. As he walks away, I wonder what business he has wearing soft shoe shuffle footwear. And then I imagine him breaking into a spontaneous two-step for loose change and lazy applause.

…the homeless woman squats demurely surrounded by bags, mostly plastic except for one from a high-end store – in pristine condition. My musings fire up. Did someone treat her to a designer scarf in lieu of a sandwich?

…the tram’s packed with the usual tech addicts. One lady with a long face catches my eye, her expression downtrodden. What’s up, ma’am? She looks like a smile hasn’t warmed her cheeks since 1987.

When it’s my stop, I collect my thoughts and as if on auto pilot, I hand her the unseasonal frangipani I carry, “Have a lovely day,” I say. And you’ve never seen such delight on a human so early on a stupidly run-of-the-mill morning commute.

“Thank you!” she replies and her face springs to life.

© Phyllis Foundis 2026

…maybe you’ve felt a few drops.

Ten years ago this week, the planet lost a gigantic talent. Whether you loved him or not, Prince revolutionised an industry persistently drunk on homogeny.   

Over the years I’ve stared slack-jawed at his mastery of on-stage flirtation, urgent guitar licks and intimate banter with adoring crowds creaming for more. Unguarded in a sound check, somewhere in Japan, a sprawling, empty stadium at his feet, Prince teases those ivories into a time-stopping rendition of Gershwin’s, Summertime – casually snapping gum like a sexy, cocky Mozart with messy hair.   

In the days after he died, I fell down a purple rabbit hole of countless videos, articles and genre-defying albums. It wasn’t long before I time-travelled to… me as a teen up late watching Under the Cherry Moon, fantasising that Prince would deflower me in a candle-lit cave not Kristin Scott Thomas. Fast forward to early 2016 and I’m leaping three feet into the air, tickets to his final Sydney concert, Piano and a Microphone mine, all mine!  

He died so young. So brilliant. So what? Why do we grieve for famous strangers?

When my beautiful father passed away in 2011, the grief was acute and it continues, unabated 14 years on. Shedding oceans of tears for Dad, is acceptable.

But sobbing for an elusive superstar?

Maybe when our beloveds die we mourn the parts of us that could only breathe when they did. And then we realise anew that the ‘…electric word, life’ never means forever. Ever.

© Phyllis Foundis 2026

You may call it Fall…

…while I’ve always known it as Autumn. Either way, Sydney is in the throes of a rather superb time of it. The season, that is.

Toes are still getting about town in sandals, all footloose and fancy free. Warm breezes ruffle the frangipani trees, surprising them out of their pre-Winter wind-down; maybe they’re thrilled – or miffed, “I gotta keep blooming?”

It actually feels like Autumn has fallen out of its routine. 

And this may be a stretch but… I think there’s a link between the splintering of an expected weather pattern and those Groundhog Days you and I can get caught up in. You know when days just seem to blend into one? You’re standing still. You’ve hit a lull. It’s a snooze-fest. There’s a reason why lullabies are hummed to babes at bedtime. 

So, how can you wake up your days and rouse the passion projects stuck in a coma while you chase your tail paying bills, catching trains, meeting deadlines? I’m bored. And no, buying yet another jet black, sequin-strewn mini dress ain’t it because sometimes in ridiculously rare circumstances, shiny garb will not diffuse the doldrums. 

Ugh. That hurt to admit.

The only way to rip open a routine is to move. Make the scary call. Take the leap of faith. Do anything. Something. Disrupt stuff. It’s the only way to beat the humdrum.

And those sparkly minis? 

They’re built to shine up a storm when you shake yo’ ass in ’em.

© Phyllis Foundis 2026

I just did the Good Greek Girl thing…

…and went to an evening church service for Orthodox Good Friday. 

And a thought occurs to me now… 

Can I spend the next 224 odd words ruminating on what exactly makes one Good? Or even, dare I say, Greek? It’s an interesting couple of questions. And frankly, I don’t have answers that will satisfy the ‘good’ or the ‘Greek’ among us. 

So, I’m going to do what all cross-bearing Christians do – confess. 

On a magnificent, unseasonably warm Autumnal day in Sydney this week, I was at the beach, basking in the delicious sunlight, feasting on an equally mouthwatering bacon and egg burger – with relish. 

Now, if you are an observant Greek Orthodox type, you’re probably shocked by my sacrilegious choice of morning fare. Chomping down on animal products during Holy Week?! Not good. 

In fact, I should’ve been eating like a strict vegan for the past 40 days. 

I love the Divine, but I don’t believe that dreaming up a dozen ways with tofu and eschewing cheese for Lent is the pathway to spiritual bliss. 

So tonight, I enjoyed my beautiful, Byzantine religion with all its rituals, pomp and ceremony. Mingling with hundreds in a packed church, I whispered ancient Hellenic prayers, millennia in the making. Touched the gleaming, gilt-edged icons of Mary and St Peter. Breathed in, incense. And kissed Christ’s flower-strewn tomb in emotional gratitude for… everything. 

I felt good. I felt Greek. And I felt God, too. 

Happy Easter. 

© Phyllis Foundis 2026

I don’t have eyes on your face now.

You could be freakishly gorgeous with superb facial symmetry and enough collagen in them thar cheeks to make injectables look like a joke.

But maybe with a bigger bank balance, ego or both, there are bits of your visage you’d wanna tweak and tuck? 

When I was in my teens being called beautiful wowed me. It was a big word and a big deal.

Attractive never impressed. Cute was for babies or pups. But, beautiful? 

The stuff of shock n’ awe. Yeah, youth wasted on the young.

My late father is one of the few people to ever call me beautiful. I’m not fishing for anything here. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I get it.

But I am bemused by the delusional, I mean optimistic, among us, who insist that scalpels and needles can cheat the years. 

This week, out of a sheer car-crash kinda fascination, I watched a detailed ‘before and after’ plastic surgery video shared by a cashed-up 50-something from NYC. Gone were the jowls, sags and bags of middle-age. She was now photo-ready! 

I can tell you, after walking a couple red carpets, those drum-tight eyes and chins ain’t a pretty sight up close. Anti-aged smiles are a horror movie, kids. 

Resistance is futile.

Our bone structure changes as we age. The eye sockets, jawbone, cheeks, nose and forehead of your 20s don’t do time travel well.

Yesteryear you is, history. Any way you cut it. 

© Phyllis Foundis 2026

Writers are hard-wired…

…to cannibalise their lives, throw friends and family under buses all for the sake of a sparkling piece of prose.

The grand dame of personal essays, Joan Didion, once said, 

“Writers are always selling somebody out.” 

I confess that occasionally (every day) I look at my life as a ridiculously compelling series of stories and characters I must immortalise in a book, film (soon). Not because I think my laundry is dirtier than yours, but maybe it’s better out than in? 

That sharper than sharp writer, Nora Ephron (also known as the scribe who immortalised orgasms served up in a New York deli – thanks to Sally and a bemused Harry) was raised to believe that everything is copy. Eventually, she realised this meant, control; slip on a banana peel and folks will laugh at you. But write about slipping on that peel and it’s your laugh. Now you’re the hero of the pratfall, not the victim. 

Before I started today’s Phylosophy, a fashion crisis hit me outta nowhere. I changed three times before I deemed myself ‘ready to write’. 

Sequinned track pants? Too shiny. White linen? Are you nuts? A star-patterned black jumper? Too broody. A slightly moth-eaten, long cashmere cardigan in dirty vanilla over a one-shouldered black onesie. Perfect. 

Not me a distracted, procrastinating, attire-obsessed writer with one eye on scroll-holing and the other on snacks. 

So, sure. One of these days, I may sell you out. I just gotta get my outfit right, first. 

© Phyllis Foundis 2026

Glamour razzles and dazzles.

Turns heads. Fuels red carpets. Inspires love and envy. This week the HQ of glam blazed through a billion media outlets. 

The 98th Oscars conjured up the usual shiny suspects in all their bejewelled finery. But is it all benign – I mean, really? Well. The clue is in the conjuring.

Ever since I read Maggie Hamilton’s deceptively sweet book, Inside the Secret World of Fairies, my view of ‘glamour’ has had a makeover because its etymology is a little sinister.

Originally from the Scottish word for grammar, glamour’s sole purpose was to beguile ‘the victim’ into seeing something other than the reality.

Hm. Victims, fans, red carpet reporters. You say tomato, I say Tom Ford.

Walter Scott summed it up in his charming medieval verse, The Lay of the Last Minstrel circa 1805:

“It had much of glamour might;
Could make a ladye seem a knight;
The cobwebs on a dungeon wall
Seem tapestry in lordly hall;
And youth seem age, and age seem youth:
All was delusion, nought was truth.”

But. For one brief, genuinely shining moment, the Oscars honoured Jessie Buckley when she won Best Actress for her role in Hamnet.

She took to the stage, a slender row of diamonds at her neck, Chanel around her shoulders – accoutrements that paled in comparison when she dedicated her new little gold friend to “…the beautiful chaos of a mother’s heart.”

And as mamas the world over will gladly tell you, there’s no glamour in that.

© Phyllis Foundis 2026

Wanna buck social norms?

Adopt a radical, new lifestyle? Travel to lands of untold cerebral beauty?

Do you want to be a maverick, a renegade? 

Read a book.

It’s one of the most counter-culture things you can do now. And I don’t mean scrolling through digitised bestsellers or slapping on headphones so authors can read to you instead.

Can we please fall back in love with turning actual pages? New (or worn) inky scents that escape from well-thumbed pages? As nose-pleasing as a lover’s skin.

Last year I read 24 novels. I don’t share this to chest beat or lord it over those of you who haven’t read a book since 2005.

Reading is my revolutionary act – especially when I do it in public.

I’m that person on your commute who makes a big show of pulling a fat book outta her bag – even when I don’t have a seat, even when I need to elbow someone to make this happen. And then I’ll turn the pages with a flamboyant rustle so hopefully even the tram driver can hear me starting a new chapter.

But alas. I’m very aware my one-woman crusade is futile, since I’ll never be louder than the chick conducting a desperately urgent, deafening Teams meeting on her phone opposite me.

We’re living in crazy times, friends.

In the 1960s, being a free-loving, weed-sucking, flower-strewn, dreadlocked hippie meant you defined the counterculture.

But in 2026, you’re sticking it to the bots when you have a library card.

© Phyllis Foundis 2026

There are certain humans…

…in life you must love with ferocity because… even though they may fumble at first, surprised and bleary eyed as they reach for their ringing phone in the wee hours, they’re still going to answer when you are calling them.

These are your 3am people, the special folks who would readily take an ungodly hour phone call from you – even if they’re mid-REM.

I treasure these men and women – the few, the far between.

The older I get the more conscious I am that my friend circle doesn’t need to be so big it warrants a postcode.

In the last ten years, friendships have soured, distance has taken a couple bonds hostage while some other pals just changed their minds about me and severed ties – without explanation; this mystery hurts more than name-calling. And while the sting of silent rejection smarts, ultimately, time has done its thing and only a faint scar remains. 

Reflecting on the people who have actively shut me out of their lives is scary enough; the questions come… am I a bad person? A bitch? Too self-involved? But writing this all down is terrifying. Now the unanswered questions that trip me up now and then, are free to taunt me in these paragraphs.

Still. The passage of years comforts and writing soothes. 

As for my 3am folks. I hold them steadfast to my heart and I’m loyal to the last. So, I keep the phone by my bed every night, ringer on.

© Phyllis Foundis 2026

Popular culture has been…

…rather pummelled lately with a withering new romantasy that reflects the height of toxic coupling. Or painfully obvious moor porn.

The planet’s entertainment outlets have come over all hot and bothered too.

Thing is, I love me a silver screen lust romp or two, but when the flick in question dresses up co-dependence, obsession, violence and abuse in peasant blouses, velvet coats and snappy, breathless dialogue, “I can follow you like a dog to the end of the world.” I lose interest.

“But it’s only a movie!” 

Well maybe. Perhaps it’s just me who gets more than a little uneasy when Hollywood makes freakishly photogenic humans the poster people for dysfunctional pairings.

As cameras flashed and fans drooled, the stars of the movie were grilled at the recent Sydney premier. 

“Did you feel a sense of responsibility not to present (the movie) like couple goals?”
And here are the direct quotes as they rode a red carpet high…

“(Love) isn’t all rainbows and sunshine and beautiful things. There’s something very sweet and wretched about their relationship. Love is this multi-faceted thing. It’s beautiful and it’s awful. We need to teach everyone about all the different colours of love.” 

No. We need to stop asking movie stars, dazzled by fat contracts and spotlights, for reality checks. Trying to understand quite how these fragrant folks justify problematic characters and storylines is impossible when they’re trapped by their own fever dream. 

Pass me the paracetamol – and an iced drink.

© Phyllis Foundis 2026