Category Archives: creativity

The THREAD: October 2023

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So this THREAD is late, I know. It also doesn’t include pictures.

But I have a VERY GOOD REASON (and yes, that absolutely required shouty caps). This time last week, I had everything set in my mind about what I would write about in relation to October (because at that point it had shaped up to be a pretty good month, all things considered). But at precisely this time last week — as in 5:13pm last Saturday — I boarded a Manly Fast Ferry and set off for Circular Quay with The Bloke and one of his clients, who had asked us to keep that particular night free.

Because this person is not only a client, but is also one of The Bloke’s great surfing mates (specifically) and an all round good person (generally), we did as requested and made no plans, thinking we were heading out to dinner. But no — he was waaaaaaay more generous than that.

HE TOOK US TO SEE SIR PAUL McCARTNEY IN CONCERT.

And as a result of that amazing and completely unexpected experience, my tiny mind was blown and I failed to put fingers to keys because I was unsure how to adequately describe what had happened. To do so, you see, I need to rewind several months…which I will do when I start the October THREAD proper…which is NOW!

THINK | HEAR | READ | EAT | ADMIRE | DO

I have been thinking, since that extraordinary concert last week, about manifestation and serendipity. As regular readers of the THREAD will know, in June this year in our entire household was in the throes of Taylor Swift Ticket Acquisition Fever. It was an extremely serious preoccupation, and one which ended very fortunately for us, but not without considerable expense. Which is why, when July rolled around and Paul McCartney tickets went on sale (also at considerable expense), I was sorely tempted to purchase some but held off. I do recall saying, however — and Marvel Girl can attest to this — “If I am meant to see Paul McCartney in concert, the universe will provide. Imagine seeing a real live Beatle, though…that would be really something.” And not long after that, life continued and I promptly forgot about the tickets I had opted not to buy.

Until…one week out from the Paul McCartney concert — and with reports flowing in of how great the shows had been in Perth and Adelaide and Melbourne — I began feeling a little wistful. I even logged on to see whether there were any seats available for the Sydney shows. Still not making the connection regarding dates, I asked The Bloke to call his client to find out what we could bring for dinner…and found out it was not dinner at all. “I’m taking you to see Paul McCartney,” he said. “Can you believe we’re going to see a real live Beatle?”.

They were his EXACT WORDS — I kid you not. The Bloke had the call on speaker, so by this point my jaw was on the floor, as was Marvel Girl’s when I told her what had been said (followed by a short silence, and a firm affirmation that I had completely restored her belief in manifestation). Needless to say, I absolutely loved the concert and remain ever so grateful to The Bloke’s client for taking us along. Paul McCartney is 81 years old but played for over three hours, and got better and better as he went along. It was a once in a lifetime experience, capped off by us making actual eye contact with the man himself as his tour bus left the venue, driving away from the crowds and coming directly towards where we were walking instead, with the four of us waving to a real live Beatle who was waving right back.

Magical doesn’t even begin to describe it.

Anyhoo…I’ll try to stop fangirling now and get on to what I have been hearing, which — unsurprisingly — has been a lot of Beatles tunes, Wings tracks and parts of the Get Back movie Peter Jackson so brilliantly made. I can’t go past this section without including a final anecdote relating to the Paul McCartney concert, which relates to one of the encore pieces he played: I’ve Got a Feeling. During the song, John Lennon was on the big screen singing his part (lifted straight from the famous rooftop performance that ended up being the last time the Beatles played together), and Sir Paul was on the stage in front of him singing his part. For any Beatles fan — or music fan for that matter — it was spinetingling stuff, the kind of moment that brings genuine tears to your eyes. I still can’t quite believe I witnessed it, but am ever so grateful I did.

I’m going to move onto reading, because otherwise this entire post will end up being about last Saturday night, and we have a whole month to review. I have read a couple of great books this month, but not before I finished Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens — I know I mentioned in the July THREAD that it had won the Miles Franklin award, but please get your hands on a copy and discover how great Shankari Chandran is. I love her writing — almost as much as I love Maggie O’Farrell’s writing, and I also had the great pleasure of reading Hamnet this month. I know it’s not new, but it was novel I fell straight into and then…well, several hours had past and I was turning the final pages.

There was one passage in Hamnet which struck a chord with me at a very deep level, describing Hamnet’s mother Agnes:

She, like all mothers, constantly casts out her thoughts, like fishing lines, towards her children, reminding herself of where they are, what they are doing, how they fare.

Agnes is, of course, the wife of William Shakespeare, who wrote the play Hamlet one year after the death of his son, Hamnet. It’s a play that holds a special place in my heart, having seen it performed for the first time on the day my grandfather passed away. We never really let go of the ones we love, whether it be casting out our fishing lines while they are alive, or casting our memories back when they have left us.

Ahhhh…moving on to eating, life-sustaining activity that it is. At the end of the school holidays (mid-October) I took my dear mum to a concert at the Sydney Opera House (more about that later), and before the show we dined — and I do mean dined, because it was fancy — at Aria. We began with a couple of sparkling glasses of French champagne, then proceeded to enjoy our selections from the pre-theatre menu, which included multiple amuse bouche offerings from the chef (Matt Moran is a genius) and even an palate cleansing pre-dessert. I had never eaten at Aria before, though have had the pleasure of dining at Benelong (inside the smallest Opera House sail) multiple times. I have to say I enjoyed the menu at Aria more — though perhaps that was because it was entirely new to me, or because we had a view of the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House (instead of sitting in it), or because I was having a truly extravagant meal with my wonderful and ever-so-deserving mother. OK: it was probaby a combination of all three, but I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed a dinner out so much.

And now onto admiring, in which (be warned!) I will wax lyrical about yet another concert I went to — this time the one I attended with my mother. We were fortunate to see violinist Joshua Bell perform with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields in the newly renovated Concert Hall of the Sydney Opera House.

Bell is famous for performing at an extremely high level, having made the transition from child prodigy to virtuoso violinist many years ago. Yes, he plays a Stradivarius rumoured to be worth as much as $14million (USD), but his technical prowess and musicality cannot be attributed simply to the quality of his instrument. Now aged 55, Bell has been practicing and perfecting his craft for decades. He is renowned the world over for the purity of his tone, which was described by one reviewer of the concert I attended as ‘silvery’, which almost describes what I felt when I heard Bell play.

It was like listening to a moonbeam.

Silvery, yes – but also bright and clear and radiant and possessed with profoundly otherworldly beauty. As I sat, enthralled, listening to the notes of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E Minor spill seemingly effortlessly from Bell’s instrument, I felt tears forming in my eyes. It was another one of those unforgettable, breathtaking experiences, and I was beyond grateful to share it with my mother, who promptly declared it the best concert she had ever been to. I thought she was just saying that to be nice, but she then informed me the best concert she had been to before that was seeing Victoria de los Angeles at the Sydney Town Hall before I was born, so…I suspect she was being truthful?!

And just as aside, did you know that William Shakespeare invented the word moonbeam? That’s also true.

So now we come, finally to doing. I think it’s fair to say that for much of the month, I have relishing the tingling highs that have come with seeing some truly fabulous performances, eating some delicious meals and reading some brilliant books, and then nursing myself through the crashing lows that inevitably follow those experiences. For me, being able to bear witness to cultural greatness is one of the great privileges of being alive, and this month I’ve been beyond blessed — so much so that I even forgot to mention in the reading section above that I also devoured the latest offering from my literary hero, Trent Dalton, which is called Lola in the Mirror. Reading that book is one of the best things I did during October, along with watching both seasons of The Bear on Disney+, which is a complete tour de force. I defy anyone to watch that show and not be viscerally affected.

So that brings me to the end of the October THREAD, knowing that it has been a rollercoaster month of highs and lows, punctuated by some spectactular perfomances: on the stage, the dining table, the page and the screen. It is the sort of month that has made me feel truly alive, and glad to be alive, and wanting to share that feeling with everyone I encounter — but with my family most of all.

I hope October was a good month for you, too. I wonder what November will bring us?!

Mind yourselves,

BJx

PS I’m just gonna leave this here…because who doesn’t want to sing along to Hey Jude with a real live Beatle and 50,000 of your new best friends?

The THREAD: May 2023

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Another month has seemingly sped by. The days are getting shorter here in the Antipodes, the nights longer, colder and darker. Lately I have been watching the moon rise in the early evening, first a fingernail and now a more substantial crescent, glowing with its own beautiful reflected light. It is literally otherworldly, and I look forward to it each night.

May is drawing to a close. I associate May with emeralds (which is the birthstone associated with this month), with the randomly-acquired weird fact that babies born in May are on average heavier than those born in any other month, and with my much-loved and even more greatly missed aunt, Marita, whose birthday was in May. I’m not sure why these are all things that involve birth, but there you go. Freud would probably have something to say about it, but I honestly couldn’t care what it was?!

Anyway, without further ado, let’s get into the THREAD for this month.

THINK | HEAR | READ | EAT | ADMIRE | DO

I’ve been thinking about all sorts of things this month. Many of them have been prompted by what I have been listening to and reading, but others have been about work (because I recently started a new job and am starting to find my feet) and also about health (because my kids both went on school camps, and two-thirds of the students who went with them ended up sick with Covid or RSV or Influenza or really bad head colds). I also deal with children who are unwell when I’m working, so during the past month I have come to appreciate how good health can be a truly tenuous thing. Looking after yourself becomes far more important when the ill-health of others brings it into sharper focus, though I suspect my age also provides a useful lens to view health through.

For me and many of my friends, our parents are becoming elderly or unwell, and some have sadly already passed away. Our children are at an age where they can almost look after themselves, but they still require reminders to protect — or more accurately not to risk — their own wellbeing (and that, I suppose, will continue until I no longer have to submit online forms when I need to advise their school they will be absent). I’m far more aware than I used to be that my own wellbeing and that of my peers is often being worn down by all manner of things. Lengthy commutes and even lengthier working hours. The infamous mental load — particularly for women. Cramming all the extracurricular stuff in. “Stuff” generally. It’s all necessary, but it’s all…there. And it’s not about to go away any time soon. So, since I only have time for one personal training session a week at the moment, I’ve been trying to relish it, knowing that it’s an hour I have carved out for my own benefit: physical, mental, emotional. And since there is a meditative quality to the reps, I might as well throw spiritual in there, too. I value that time more than ever now, and recognise it for the precious thing it is. As Anne Wilson Schaef said, “Good health is not something we can buy. However, it can be an extremely valuable savings account”.

On a similar note, I fortuitously stumbled across Julia Louis Dreyfus’ new podcase Wiser Than Me this month, and have been listening as she interviews older women, mining the rich veins of their wisdom about the world and how to live in it. So far I’ve heard her speak with Jane Fonda, Isabelle Allende, Ruth Reichl, Fran Lebowitz and Darlene Love, and I’m midway through the episode with Diane von Furstenberg. Each conversation has been interesting, revealing, and — without fail — provides me with either a much needed kick in the pants to do something (or to attempt to do it differently), or with a ‘nugget’, which is the word I attach to a piece of advice that rings as true as pure gold to me.

The women Julia Louis Dreyfus interviews are all inspirational in their own way, and I have found it interesting to hear them talking about all manner of things. Keeping active. Staying healthy. Dealing with regrets and disappointments. Navigating marriages and friendships. And suggesting that it might be a good idea to rid of the word “ageing” and replace it with “living” — because that’s what we’re all doing: living (or in Paris Hilton’s case, sliving — but that’s a story for another time and place).

I’ve been reading about women and friendships, too. First I devoured Kamila Shamsie’s novel Best of Friends, which brings to life the world of Karachi, Pakistan on the eve of Benezir Bhutto coming to power in rich and atmospheric detail, before shifting to almost present day London. The main characters, Zahra and Maryam, have been friends since they were teenagers. I’m not going to say too much more about it, other than I admired Shamsie’s writing a great deal, and recognised the truth in some of her insights, like this one:

Perhaps that was the key to the longevity of childhood friends — all those shared subtexts that no one else could discern. And perhaps shared subtext felt even more necessary when you both lived far away from the city of your childhood that was itself the subtext to your lives. Childhood friendship really was the most mysterious of all relationships, Maryam thought…it was built around rules that didn’t extend to any other pairing in life. You weren’t tied by blood, or profession, or an enmeshed domesticity or even — as was the case with friendships made in adulthood — much by way of common interests.

If you enjoy the novels of Elana Ferrante (such as The Lying Life of Adults or, more particularly, the Neoplotian quartet that begins with My Brilliant Friend and features a similar pairing of friends in Lenu and Lila), this is definitely in the same wheelhouse and well worth your time.

I also read a fabulous book by Meg Bignell called The Angry Women’s Choir, and followed that blast of fresh air with Laura Imai Messina’s more subdued but still beautiful novel The Phonebox at the Edge of the World. Both are great and I recommend them.

In terms of what I’ve been eating, soup has featured prominently on the menu for me recently. I generally make a big pot each weekend and use whatever we have most of in the fridge, then take it to work for lunch. So far I’ve made a couple of pots of celery and zucchini soup (the zucchini adds much needed creaminess to the otherwise potentially stringy celery), and more recently have made a giant tureen of another favourite: pumpkin soup. I’m planning on doing another pot of something on Tuesday — I have some pearl barley so I might do good old fashioned vegetable soup and use up whatever odds and ends are in the fridge.

Last week I was also lucky enough to eat out a few nights, because both the kids were away on school camp. Having a couple of unexpected mid-week date nights with The Bloke was great. We hit up a couple of local favourites, first Teddy Larkins and then the Manly Skiff Club. Both were great — but the best bit, for me, was the company. Sometimes it take being away from the whole family for an extended period to remind me that The Bloke is still very much My Person, even after twenty years. It’s nice to know we still get along, too.

In terms of what I’ve been admiring, I finally finished watching The Americans. I know I’ve been late to the party on this one, but I was so happy when Disney+ released all six seasons I started watching it immediately and was just as quickly hooked. Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys are fine actors, and at the top of their games in this series (though Rhys was also fantastic as Lloyd Vogel in A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood, which starred Tom Hanks as Mr Rogers). Noah Emmerich also deserves a massive shout out for his role as FBI agent Stan Beeman, the unwitting neighbour of extremely active Russian KGB agents Philip and Elizabeth Jennings (played by Rhys and Russell). Emmerich has now gone from being “Oh, it’s that guy,” when he appears on screen to me actually knowing his name.

The Americans had it all for me, but really delivered in two areas: nostalgia and tension. The sets, props, costumes, language, everything took me straight back to my childhood, and made me realise just how much (even in Australia) the Cold War hung over our heads in the 1980s. The tension, on every level — international, suburban, intergenerational, marital — was brilliantly orchestrated and calibrated, and truly masterfully delivered in the series finale. For my money, the absence of dialogue and use entire musical tracks in the finale following the now-famous garage scene (let’s face it: it had to happen eventually) was a brave decision that — for my money — absolutely worked. Now I’ve finished watching it I feel slightly bereft, but also in need of television viewing that does not leave me realising I’ve been holding my breath.

And now, finally, onto doing. The Bloke and I unlocked an adulting achievement this month when (drumroll please) we managed to park our cars side by side in our new garage for the very first time. After decades — yes, decades — of tandem parking and having to do the old switcheroo when one of us needed to get one of our cars out, we can now simply press a button to raise the garage door and back out down the driveway. I realise tandem parking is the epitome of a First World Problem, but to say this achivement is momentous is underestimating how truly lifechanging this has been for us.

The other thing I did (another drumroll please!) was take my wonderful mother to see the Ballet! If you cast your mind back to the second edition of the THREAD, you might remember I was sad to think that I would never get to see Adam Bull dance again before he retired from the Australian Ballet. Well folks, I did get to see him perform — in one of his last shows at the iconic Sydney Opera House. Mum and I had a fantastic afternoon on a truly sparkling Sydney day (you gotta love this city)…

…and we absolutely loved the performance, which was called Identity and featured two works, The Hum by Daniel Riley and Paragon by Alice Topp. Spending the whole entire afternoon with my mother was such an incredible treat, and I was so grateful to The Bloke and our kids for looking after The Professor while mum and I quite literally sat back and enjoyed the show. In fact, we loved it so much we’ve booked to see another show together later in the year — not ballet, but something equally enthralling which I will no doubt get to write about in October.

Anyhoo, that’s all for now. As always, I’d love to know what you’ve been up to and enjoying, so feel free to leave a comment if you’d like to.

Mind yourselves, too!

BJx

The THREAD: April 2023

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It’s autumn here in the Antipodes. Although the days are still pleasantly warm enough, the nights are starting to cool down. Sleep comes easier at this time of year. The summer doona is back in the linen press, replaced with a warmer one that always reminds me of a cloud — so much that changing the sheets makes me feel happy.

There many aspects of autumn that I love, but one of the best things about this time of year is that the ocean temperature is still delightfully warm, and the beaches are less crowded. An April dip in the Pacific brings me a quiet sort of joy. Sometimes I think autumn in Sydney might be a reward for surviving the drooping humidity of late summer.

But enough rambling on about the season. Even though we have just slipped into May, it’s time for the April THREAD.

THINK | HEAR | READ | EAT | ADMIRE | DO

It was ANZAC Day last week, so I’ve been thinking about my grandfather, who served in the Royal Australian Navy during World War Two and was present in Toyko Bay when the Japanese signed the surrender ending that awful conflict. We went to a small Dawn Service on April 25th at the caravan park at Seal Rocks, to which we had escaped for a couple of days to cap off the Easter holidays. It was a solemn and simple commemoration: a couple of school kids reading short reflection on the bravery of the ANZACs and the Ode, then a trumpeter playing the Last Post. There was a minute’s silence before he continued with the Reveille, followed by the beautiful and moving sight of a lone uniformed horseman with an Australian flag paying tribute to the Light Horsemen who served in World War One, riding along the beach as the sun rose over the sea.

I wondered, as I stood there, my hands cradling a candle in a paper cup, whether my grandfather had seen Seal Rocks from his ship when he sailed back to Sydney Harbour, having survived the war in the Pacific with all its horrors — not least of which were the infamous kamikaze pilots. Perhaps he saw the coastline, crowned by the lighthouse that has warned ships away from the rocks since 1875. Maybe he didn’t — and it really doesn’t matter. I felt gratitude as I stood there, surrounded by my family and by strangers. There were people of all generations, from well dressed retirees to kids still in their pajamas and dressing gowns, all gathered to remember those who served, especially the fallen, and to pay our respects to those who continue to serve. It also felt distinctly Australian, perhaps because as we sang the first part of the National Anthem I felt all of us there knew exactly what it feels like to be girt by sea, or maybe because despite the solemnity of the occasion the vast majority of us in attendance were wearing thongs or ugg boots or no shoes at all.

At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them. Lest we forget.

Ahhh…moving on. Because we’ve had a few hours in the car getting to and from Seal Rocks, I’ve been hearing a couple of podcasts The Bloke has been listening to lately. The first one is called Billy Joel A to Z, a podcast by a couple of comedians called Elon Altman and Dave Juskow who happen to love Billy Joel songs and have decided to go through all 121 songs he recorded from A to Z — or, more accurately perhaps, from A Matter of Trust to Zanzibar. I’d never heard any of it before, so landed where The Bloke was up to (towards the end of the F’s), and found it entertaining enough. It seems I made the same complaint many listeners do, which is that they do not play the song they are talking about at the beginning of each episode — though given licencing laws I can understand why. Some of the content is genuinely funny, especially the song parodies they come up with, and if you’re a fan of Billy Joel’s music, it’s worth a listen. That said, I would also recommend listening to the specific song they are dissecting before each episode so it makes more sense.

Since the NBA Playoffs are upon us and The Bloke is a big basketball fan, we also listened to the latest installment of The Mismatch. Fortunately, I’ve been watching some of the game highlights on YouTube so was familiar with some of the big topics covered (not least of which was Draymond Green’s suspension), but at the end of the episode it came out that their theme song was recorded by Father John Misty, which led us down a rabbithole of his songs — kicking off with Mr Tillman, which has the kids and I have counted as a favourite for quite a while but The Bloke had never heard, until we found ourselves pulling into our driveway at home.

I mentioned during the March THREAD that I had just finished reading Ian McEwan’s book Lessons, which explores — in a significant amount of detail — the life story of one Roland Baines, starting from his primary school days at an English boarding school and finishing when he has become a grandfather. Beejay Silcox summed the novel up well in her review for The Guardian:

McEwan’s 17th novel is old-fashioned, digressive and indulgently long; the hero is a gold-plated ditherer, and the story opens with a teenage wank (few books are improved by an achingly sentimental wank). But Lessons is also deeply generous. It’s compassionate and gentle, and so bereft of cynicism it feels almost radical. Can earnestness be a form of literary rebellion?

I’m still not sure whether I enjoyed Lessons. It’s densely written, full of allusions and references (if you care to pick them all up), and of historical and socio-political detail (frequently from more than one point of view). I will admit, however, that since I finished reading it I have thought about passages in the book often — particularly in relation to women and the creation of art. As McEwan writes towards the end of Lessons: “The larger subject was the ruthlessness of artists. Do we forgive or ignore their single-mindedness or cruelty in the service of their art? And are we more tolerant the greater the art?” This is a question that makes me wonder about my own creativity, because although I may possess a room of my own (or more accurately, passageway?!) à la Virginia Woolf, I know I do not possess the sort of ruthlessness portrayed by Roland’s first wife in Lessons. Does that mean I will never create something great? I wonder…

Not surprisingly, after reading Lessons, I needed something entirely different — and so devoured Samantha Shannon’s epic A Day of Fallen Night, which returns to the same fantasy world of The Priory of the Orange Tree. Happily, it did the job I needed it to.

As part of our return to menu planning, we have been eating some old favourites and some new creations lately. After ordering a massive box of green vegetables when my usual fruit and vegetable delivery was on a hiatus, I made a silverbeet version of what was meant to be Spinach and Feta Pie, based on a recipe from Jamie Oliver. I’ve not used filo pastry for ages, and forgot how versatile it is, not to mention how crispy and tasty. The kids told me this one definitely needs to be added to the list, along with various other favourites like Beef and Bean Nachos, Satay Chicken and good old reliable Spag Bol.

I also made a batch of passionfruit and pear muffins this week. These were intended to be blueberry muffins, but upon opening the freezer I discovered that Miss Malaprop her helped herself to a bag and a half of frozen blueberries while making smoothie bowls. Necessity is the mother of invention, as they say, and the pears were on the verge of being relegated to being thrown out or turned into crumble, so…yeah. At least we had something to go into lunch boxes until the next lot of blueberries arrived.

I have been admiring the resilience of my dear little cat, Tauriel, lately. She had emergency abdominal surgery just before Easter, having (very unfortunately) blocked her own bowel with a furball. Despite being in obvious discomfort — not to mention slightly off her head on methadone and fentanyl — she has patiently endured the post-operative recovery process, with all its vet visits and oral antibiotics (I only got scratched once). Since being given the all clear to return to her regular feline pursuits, Tauriel has been rather more affectionate than usual and has even given me her version of a hug. Truly heartwarming stuff.

My admiration has also been kindled by a dear family friend of ours, Valda, who was experiencing some health issues recently and subsequently received an unexpected and unpleasant diagnosis. She has displayed great dignity and calm as she faces this challenge — which, upon reflection, is hardly surprising, because as for as far back as I can remember she has been a dignified and calm person. She also has a wonderful sense of humour, which I sincerely hope serves her well in the coming weeks and months, and she has always been very kind to me and mine — so fingers crossed some exceptionally good karma is coming her way.

And that brings us, as always, to doing, and also returns this post back to where it started — at Seal Rocks. After having a great initial experience in the surf at our local break in late January, I mused one evening that I might like The Bloke to teach me how to surf when we went for our ANZAC Day getaway up the coast. He, having being provided with this flimsiest of excuses, decided this would be a great opportunity to purchase (yet another) surfboard for our burgeoning collection — a foam topped one for beginners of my size and (lack of) ability.

On our first day at Seal Rocks, the surf was too big for beginners such as myself. But on the second day, The Bloke deemed the conditions to be more manageable and decided it would be a good time to take me and my new blue board and push us out to sea. The water was very clear, and the most beautiful shade of turquoise I’ve seen in a long time. It was also reasonably warm, but a little bit dumpy. Friends — I had a go. Not a particularly successful go, given I grazed both my knees on the surface of my new board (which turned out to be a weird combination of rough and slippery). Sadly, I did not manage to stand up on the board a single time without immediately pitching sideways into the surf. Then, having experienced the excruciating ignominy of attempting to paddle back out to the break and discovering that — despite my genuinely best efforts — the board was travelling backwards through the water instead of forwards, I was forced to make a demeaning retreat to the sand and walk along the beach beforing attempting to catch one more wave.

I ended up riding that last wave in on my belly, boogie board style, to The Bloke’s (probably) eternal shame. Clearly, I did not cover myself in any kind of glory, but lived instead to tell the tale — however humiliating. That said, I have not given up and to my immense surprise, my ego has rebounded from the experience far more swiftly than I thought it would. I will, despite my relatively ancient age to be taking up such pursuits, try surfing again at some point…most likely when The Bloke is next willing to suffer through what will likely be yet another embarrassing spectacle. Such is life?!

Anyway, that brings us to the end of the April THREAD.

I would love to hear what you’ve been up to and what you’ve been consuming — via ears, eyes, mouth or any combination of these.

Until next time, mind yourselves.

BJx

Introducing the THREAD

Posted on by • Posted in Blue Jai Creative, Books, creativity, music, Musings, Travel and Trips, Trips and Travels, Uncategorized, Writing • Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , • Leave a comment

It’s been a long while since I last posted here. Christmas has come and gone, and New Year’s too.

Since our family finally ventured overseas for the first time in years at the beginning of January 2023, my year in review posts for 2022 never eventuated. And, although I often have a multitude of ideas for posts, I frequently don’t have the time to execute them — mostly because life. So between my last post and this, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about how to make this blog more relevant to my life as it is now.

When I started making a list of what I wanted to write about — things I’d been thinking, reading, eating and doing — I realised I had the beginnings of a workable acronym for all I wanted to communicate. A couple of minutes of tinkering later, I had a plan in my notebook and a smile on my face.

And so, without further ado, I would like to introduce you to the THREAD.

THINK | HEAR | READ | EAT | ADMIRE | DO

I’ve been thinking about this post by Amy Betters-Midvelt, which someone shared to the Chat10LooksTeen Facebook group recently. It’s called All Parents of Teenagers are Liars, and examines the way we speak about — OK, lie about — the lives of those she refers to as “tall kids”, or teenagers. It reminded me of the old saying, which I may have heard myself imparting to my own tall kids of late, that everyone is dealing with something. You might be privy to someone’s situation. Perhaps, to you, it seems trivial, perhaps not. Or maybe you’ll never know what a person is going through, and it’s something truly ghastly. Or maybe it’s not. But the fact remains: everyone is dealing with something.

My two main takeaways from this thought-provoking piece were, firstly, that regardless of how tall they are (and believe me, Marvel Girl has well and truly passed me, and Miss Malaprop’s not far behind her), teenagers are still kids. And secondly, that just about every parent of a teenager I know is more likely to respond as cheerily as they can to a query about how their tall kid is doing rather than launching into a ten minute diatribe about whatever it is they are dealing with at that time, whether it be school refusal, bullying, slipping grades, vaping, porn, alcohol, general slothfulness, or their insistence on publicly wearing a bikini so miniscule it would make a Brazilian blush. We’re all doing our best, with varying degrees of success, and sometimes as unsure of ourselves as parents as our tall kids are of the almost-adults they’re becoming.

Everyone is dealing with something. But focusing on the good bits when we’re asked? Maybe that’s not such a bad thing…

Since I live in a house with two tall kids, I’ve been hearing a lot of their music lately. Our summer days have been filled with songs from Lana Del Ray, Taylor Swift, and Harry Styles. Marvel Girl got a record player for Christmas, so there have been numerous trips to various music stores in search of specific titles on vinyl. (I suspect I did clock up more than a few brownie points for presenting her with the Moonstone Blue edition of Midnights to start off her collection, but that may have been more good luck than good management on my part).

The Bloke and I have made sure Marvel Girl has added a few classics to her record collection too, making sure she’s got some Beatles tunes, and some U2, and even dug out some old vinyl we’d been hanging on to since forever and introduced her to Neil Diamond’s Hot August Nights. We even found some Elvis records that had belonged to her great grandmother, and the theme song to Felix the Cat, just for good measure.

When the kids are not around, I’ve been listening to a weird mix of Indie Folk and whatever happens to be on Spotify’s ever-changing “Front Left” playlist. And when I’m working, it’s all instrumental…no words, because lyrics have a tendency to get in the way of the words I’m writing.

I’ve been doing quite a lot of reading this summer, have have been on a bit of a Jonathan Franzen kick after reading Crossroads just after Christmas. I was happy to hear Crossroads is intended as the first of a trilogy, and I enjoyed it so much I decided to read Freedom. Franzen writes about family so well — the weird, somtimes stilted, inter-generational dynamics of living with people purely by accident of birth — and often in a darkly funny way.

I also plowed my way through several holiday reads via the Libby app (Jane Harper’s Exiles, and two very British mystery novels by Sarah Yarwood-Lovett called A Murder of Crows and A Cast of Falcons). In various airports and armchairs I read Allegra in Three Parts by Suzanne Daniel, Hilde Hinton’s new book A Solitary Walk on the Moon, Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s Before the Coffee Gets Cold and a couple of entertaining thrillers: The Cloisters by Katy Hays and A Narrow Door by Joanne Harris. I also read and found myself frequently reflecting on the tragically beautiful portrait of love and mental illness in Olivie Blake’s novel Alone With You in the Ether. I enjoyed them all, some more than others, but mostly because each was exactly what I needed at the time.

Eating is something I am eternally grateful for. I am one of those people who lives to eat, not one who eats to live, so good food — whether prepared by me or for me — is something I truly relish. We ate some fantastic meals during our road trip around New Zealand, discovering some great restaurants. To this end I highly recommend Atticus Finch in Rotorua, Pacifica in Napier (where our kids enjoyed their first ever degustation dinner), and the Pier Hotel in Kaikoura.

Since we’ve been home and school has resumed, we are back to far more routine offerings, such as Nigella Lawson’s Chocolate Banana Muffins (my copy of her book Kitchen automatically falls open at the page featuring this recipe, not least because it is a very effective way of using up over-ripe bananas). Like most of Australia — OK, half the world — we’ve been singing the praises of Nagi Maehashi, of RecipeTin Eats fame, whose cookbook Dinner has been a source of many a home cooked meal at our place this summer. We are particular fans of the Asian Glazed Salmon, not only because it’s insanely delicious, but also because it is super quick to prepare. We tip our collective hats to Nagi, a Northern Beaches local who creates amazing recipes and gives so much back to our local community via RecipeTin Meals.

I know it might seem like a peculiar thing, but one thing I have been admiring lately is the bottom of our new swimming pool. Yep — the bottom! You know how the light hitting the water creates those mesmerising moving patterns? The ones that make you think you might be swimming over the top of a gigantic turquoise-shelled sea turtle (if such a thing existed)? Or some kind of weirdly warped honeycomb-like tessellation? OK…maybe it’s just me. But I do love watching it, floating on the surface, gazing down into the blue.

I am also admiring my kids, who both started at a new school this year. It’s not been entirely plain sailing, but they’re both doing all those hard things that stand you in good stead later in life, as well as in the here and now: making new friends, finding their way in unfamiliar territory, remembering (after a long summer) how to be punctual, showing up to things they’ve signed up for, speaking up for themselves when they need to. I’m struck by their courage, their tenacity, their humour. It was truly gratifying to see their care for each other after their first day, checking in and making sure their sister had survived their first day before regaling me with tales of what they’d experienced. And I’m grateful — beyond measure — that after four years at separate schools, they are finally together again.

And finally, we find ourselves at doing! We’ve been doing so much, but the standout highlight would have to be our New Zealand road trip. We flew into Auckland, and drove — via Hobbiton, of course — to Rotorua in all its (stinky) geothermal glory, then onto Napier before heading down to see very dear friends who have made their home in Wellington, at the tip of the North Island. A particularly exciting moment for Marvel Girl was watching her godfather flying a plane out of his “office”, Wellington airport: she had requested he do a barrel roll but apparently such aerobatics are frowned upon on domestic flights, so we settled for seeing him take off instead. We might even have cheered.

From Wellington we made our way across to the South Island via the Interislander Ferry to Kaikoura, saw hundreds of seals including about fifty pups at O’hau, then made our way via Christchurch to Aoraki (Mt Cook). There we were blown away by mountain views, icebergs and glaciers, and even swam in the very cold but still refreshing Lake Pukaki. We finally wended our way to Queenstown, made a magical day trip to Milford Sound and saw a bunch of bottlenosed dolphins put on quite a show, before finishing up with a hair-raising jetboat ride on the Shotover River. We flew home tired but happy, pleased with all we’d been able to do and see but also glad to be back in our new house.

So there you have it, folks: the inaugural edition of the THREAD, which I hope you’ve enjoyed.

I’d love to know what you’ve been getting up to over the summer and how life is treating you now school is back in session for another year. I’d also appreciate any thoughts you have on tall kids and how to manage being a parent (I’ve just about given up trying to “manage” the tall kids at this point, but I think that’s also kind of the point at this stage in their development?!), or anything else that has got your brain turning over lately. And feel free, as always, to use the comments for recommendations for any music, books or recipes you’re into as well.

Mind yourselves,

BJx

The Art of Hoping

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Nearly three hundred years ago, a young French nobleman by the name of Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues was encouraged by his friend Voltaire to publish an assortment of essays and other writings, appended to which was a collection aphorisms called Reflections and Maxims (1746).

Among these sayings was one I stumbled across the other day:

La patience est l’art d’espérer.

This short phrase translates, very simply, as “Patience is the art of hoping”.

Finding this shiny little gem of a sentence was helpful to me, particularly as I am currently working on two long term projects: building a house and writing a novel. Both of these ventures require abundant quantities of patience, not least because La Niña has been persistently wreaking havoc with the weather and head colds have been stubbornly interfering with my children’s health and school attendance.

For much of my life, patience has been a virtue that has often eluded me. I have written before about being stalked by the Grey Cat of Restlessness, which I freely admit is much easier to live with than Churchill’s Black Dog, but which also presents challenges of its own — especially when longer tasks are involved.

It’s not that I’m not prepared to do the work or put in the hard yards. Watching our new home slowly emerging beneath the scaffolding is exciting, and writing makes my soul sing even on the dreariest day.

But, like Inigo Montoya, I hate waiting.

I think that is why I appreciate de Clapier’s aphorism (number 251 of 700, no less) putting such a positive spin on patience. By highlighting the role of hope in being patient, it becomes far more aspirational rather than temporal.

I like hope!

As Emily Dickinson said: Hope is the thing with feathers. It allows us to take flight.

I like steadfastness, too. It allows us to persist.

In fact, I’m a fan of a whole raft of great qualities that can help you when things — especially creative endeavours like building houses and writing novels — feel like they’re taking forever.

Because even when things feel interminable, it is worth remembering that life is short, and ageing is a privilege.

Just ask Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues, who died at the tender age of 31 the year after he published his collection of essays and other writings. Because he did it…he finished the book, and published it, even if he did so anonymously and he didn’t become famous for it until a century after his death.

The art of hoping allows us to persist, even when our patience cups feel depleted, or leaky, or empty.

Maybe especially then.

Because we never, ever know what is just around corner.

The most absurd and reckless aspirations have sometimes been the cause of remarkable success.

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues

Mind yourselves,

BJx

Spicy Coughs & Spirit Animals

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I started this blog in 2014, and I don’t think I’ve had a month when I didn’t post something in all that time — except for March 2022.

Last month, the dreaded Spicy Cough finally caught up with me, and I was stuck alone in my room for seven days. I’d managed to avoid getting it when the kids did in early February, but in mid-March COVID finally got its claws into me. How I got it I will never know: I’m double vaxxed plus boosted, I’d worn a mask everywhere I went, and I’d hardly been anywhere.

I didn’t think COVID had affected me too badly until I started to recover. Only then did I realise how crook I’d been, and as a result I am so grateful to be back doing normal things like working and shopping and exercising. I can run up the (many) stairs to our rental without puffing again. I can walk to the beach and back without having to rest halfway. Most importantly, after being contained in a small space and not being able to see the rest of my family for an entire week, I can truly appreciate living life to the full.

And I guess that brings me to the second part of my musings today: the tragic and untimely death of Taylor Hawkins, a man who appeared to live life to the full every day.

I have joked often, and publicly, that Taylor Hawkins is my spirit animal.

I never met him, of course, was not likely to, and now never will.

But in life, Taylor seemed to be sunshine personified, imbued with incredible energy and creativity, and ever ready to smile, laugh and have copious quantities of fun.

What’s not to like about all or any of those things, or to aspire to emulate them?

And who says it’s not possible to grieve, in some way or another, for someone you never met?

Not being especially well versed in such matters, I am now wondering whether I need to choose a new spirit animal for myself — but I’m guessing Taylor himself would say: no way.

His spirit will always live on, if we let it.

If we aspire to it.

If we let it shine like Taylor Hawkins did.

This Fearless Life

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At the beginning of each year I attempt to find a word or theme to guide me through the twelve months ahead. It makes sense to me to do this, not only because here in the Southern Hemisphere the school year mirrors the calendar year, but also because my birthday falls in January. I find it useful to embrace an overarching concept that often ends up informing what I do, what I read, what I think, and even the way I approach my life.

Last year, I took delight as my guiding principle after dipping into Ross Gay’s Book of Delights. Prior to that I (perhaps less successfully) delved into the lives of diverse people — Marcus Aurelius, Virginia Woolf, Keith Richards — to see how their perspectives might inform my own. Another year I chose a different Word of the Month to engage with.

In 2021, I’m taking myself going down a slightly different path again — one decidedly unfamiliar to me, raised as I was in a reasonably conservative Roman Catholic home by parents who remain steadfast in their faith and who chose to send me to Catholic schools throughout my primary and secondary education. This year, inspired by reading Jay Shetty’s book Think Like a Monk, I’ve chosen to explore the Divine Qualities outlined in Chapter 16 of the Bhagavad Gita.

There are 26 Divine Qualities listed in the Gita, so I am hoping to tackle one every couple of weeks. Quite obviously, I haven’t been raised Hindu and have little experience with the Vedic tradition other than what I’ve learned from various teachers when attending yoga classes from time to time, which means I am engaging with each quality as outsider. From the oustet I think it is important to state that I do not intend to bring a religious slant to any of my posts and I mean absolutely no disrespect to believers in this or in any religion: I am simply using the Divine Qualities mentioned in the Bhagavad Gita as a starting point and exploring how these, as I understand them, apply to my own life.

The first Divine Quality mentioned in the Bhagavad Gita is FEARLESSNESS.

What a way to kick things off, huh?!

You may, given the current state of the wider world, now have an inkling of understanding as to why I was intrigued by the Divine Qualities: given that much of 2020 involved a global pandemic, trade wars, continuing environmental crises and particular politicians peddling lies and failing to protect their own people, there were many things about last year that made me FEARFUL. I often wondered, in 2020, whether my family would stay physically safe in the face of an invisible disease and mentally strong when confronted with multiple lockdowns, whether my husband’s business and those of his clients would survive the associated economic upheaval, and whether the world was actually going to hell in a handbasket.

Fearlessness? I’ve never lived through a year more prone to making people fearful, or for provoking (at best) garden variety anxiety on a daily, if not hourly, basis!

Fearlessness…

I have to admit the word shocked me when I first read it, right at the top of the list of Divine Qualities. It felt like such a foreign concept in these strange and unusual times.

And yet, the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to embrace fearlessness.

Many of us spend far too much time worrying about — or even fearing — things beyond our control. What if we stopped fearing what other people might think of us, or whether we’re good enough, or if the timing is right? What if we started to trust ourselves and our abilities more, to do what is right and responsible, to make our best effort every time with the knowledge and resources we have?

For me, staring fearlessness in the face meant asking myself:

  • What if I actually finish my novel?
  • What if I allow myself time to exercise every day?
  • What if I publish more on this blog, even if it exposes me to potential ridicule?
  • What if I say no to stuff that no longer serves me?
  • What if I say yes to trying new things?

And I’ve decided, on balance, that all of those things are worth doing.

That it’s worth letting go of fear and trusting the universe (or God, or whatever you believe in) has my back.

That it’s important to have faith that the vast majority of people on this planet are doing their best and are kind and decent human beings.

That it’s time I lived with fearlessness!

2019 in Song

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OK folks…strap yourselves in — it’s time for my Top 5 in music for 2019!

Only rule that applies to this list is that the song had to be released in 2019. No more mucking around — let’s jump straight in.

1. Harmony Hall Vampire Weekend

Who can fail to be happy when one of their favourite bands releases their first single in aaaaaages on your actual birthday? This was a present I didn’t expect and one that kept giving the whole year long. I love everything about this song, from the catchy beat to the genre-jumping progression of muscial styles — especially when they go from what sounds like a classical piano solo into sliding country guitar. For what it’s worth, the snake in the video is super cute, too.

2. The Barrel Aldous Harding

I’m not going to lie — I have no idea what the lyrics to the song are about, but this was one of the tunes I found myself listening to over and again in 2019. It’s whimsical and somehow magical and proves you don’t have to be playing klezmer to include a clarinet on a track. Aldous Harding is a Kiwi folk singer-songwriter whose work I will definitely be checking out more regularly — though the video does prompt ever so many questions…not least of which is do I need to wear platforms to dance like that?

3. Firesmoke Kate Tempest

I read Kate Tempest’s book The Bricks That Built the Houses a few years ago and it remains one of my favourite reads of the past decade. I suspect this song will also be one of my favourites of the decade. It is an incredible, personal love song, a raw and searing portrait of intimacy. It’s Firesmoke.

4. All I Want Broken Social Scene

This one needs to be listened to up loud! It’s as bold and brash as Firesmoke is quiet and contained, but the sentiment remains the same. Canada’s indie rock darlings delivered this around the same time Vampire Weekend released Harmony Hall — it must have been quite a week for great tunes, because this one rocks and I love it.

5. Summer Girl HAIM

There is not, in my humble opinion, enough saxophone being played in songs these days (or clarinet…as The Barrel proved at No. 2 above). This song from HAIM is a poppy classic with a sax riff that gets stuck in your head in all the best ways. I love the video too: the idea of stripping off all we no longer need as we head into summer — not to mention the next decade — it one I can get behind.

Honourable Mentions this year go to James Blake for Don’t Miss It, and also to a few tracks released in 2018 than didn’t really make it onto my radar until 2019: Fireworks by First Aid Kit and No Roots by Joshua Hyslop.

And my Top 5 Throwbacks for the year (other than anything by the inimitable and still very much missed David Bowie) are, in no particular order:

  1. Love and Peace — Quincy Jones (1969)
  2. Heads Will Roll — Yeah Yeah Yeahs (2009)
  3. Kiss Them For Me — Siouxsie and the Banshees (1991)
  4. Where Is My Mind? — The Pixies (1988)
  5. Grateful Song — Villagers (2013)

Stay tuned for my best of 2019 in Movies/TV and books!