Folks, it has been a considerable amount of time since I have put fingers to keys and tended to my tiny patch of cyberspace. I have been waiting for the right moment to dive back into this blog after the longest hiatus I have taken from it since its inception in 2014, and now seems as good a time as any.
Much of my life is incredibly structured. There is a substantial part of me that relishes rigour and routine, swoons over spreadsheets, fancies fitting every last thing into a clearly and carefully labelled box, and is obsessed with order and organisation. This is the part of me that gets all of the things done.
But there is also an insubstantial part of me, which loves nothing better than immersing myself in ideas and imaginings, adores making something out of nothing, savours stories and fictions of all kinds and favours following meandering thoughts to unanticipated places and taking time to feel and remember and notice…stuff…all the stuff. This is the part of me that is creative, unconfined, and sometimes unconventional — despite (or perhaps because of) the other part of me that gets all of the things done.
So, with those two strange bedfellows in mind, I decided during my break from this blog to take it back to where it began a decade ago — to making this a place where I come to make sense of it all (whatever “it” happens to be on any given day), a space to accommodate the musings of the Daydream Believer (as incongruent and eccentric as they may be).
I’m not planning on trotting out my monthly THREADs any more, or posting with any regularity either. I’m taking this patch of cyberspace back to its roots, which were barely grounded in whim and whimsy back then, and are likely to be just as flimsily planted now. Despite all the gardening imagery I might use when describing this place, it was never intended to be a formally cultivated space. It was meant to be a space where mere wisps of thoughts and imaginings could expand in the ether, and end up wherever their vapourous trails unfurled.
As Rick Rubin says:
No matter what tools you use to create, the true instrument is you. And through you, the universe that surrounds us all comes into focus.
So, I’m diving back in, folks. If you’ve stuck around since the beginning or just been here for a single post, I thank you — and I invite you to ride the wave with me and find out where we end up next.
Hey you guys…I know I was meant to do a November THREAD. Probably a December one, too.
But the thing is, I’m in need of a break. The Ferals (aka my children) have already been on school holidays for a while and I have been getting over a lovely post viral infection after having COVID again. Weirdly, the secondary infection was much worse than the spicy one, but with the same result: I need to recharge.
It’s time for me to spend some time with my parents, in particular. My amazing mother’s birthday falls just before Christmas, then we have the Main Event on the 25th, and this year that will be followed by my parents’ Golden Wedding Anniversary. 50 YEARS! That’s genuinely inspirational, though I will admit have ordered them a rather unconventional present to celebrate…not that The Professor will have much clue what is going on. He’s now largely non-verbal, but still hanging on to those things that we all take for granted in daily life that provide us with something truly inestimable: dignity. Long may he be able to put (most) of his own clothes on.
So I’m stepping away from my little patch of cyberspace for a time. My peeps are home and my parentals are not so very far away, and I’m needed in the here and now rather than roaming the wilds of the interwebs.
However you celebrate the festive season, I wish you well. I hope 2023 has been kind to you and that 2024 will be truly spectacular — in all the right ways.
Mind yourselves,
BJx
PS I’m leaving you with a random scattering of possible excuses for my taking a break — even though I am fully aware if you make excuses you’ll make nothing else — because that’s exactly what I’m gonna be doing: nothing…
PPS 150 points to anyone (I presume they will be a Ravenclaw) who knows exactly what Cillian is saying and how it applies to my Ferals right now…
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?
September, and spring has not sprung in Sydney, it’s deadset yo-yoing. The temperature this weekend is meant to hit 34°, while next weekend it is forecast to plunge to lows of 9° at night, and then the following week? Your guess is as good as mine. Needless to say, no one knows which layers to wear, what to sleep under, or whether The BOM (aka the Bureau of Meteorology) is to be believed or is making it all up on the fly.
It’s also school holidays (huzzah!), so settle down with a cuppa and let me fill you in on the latest in my September THREAD.
THINK | HEAR | READ | EAT | ADMIRE | DO
During the past two days I have been thinking about transformation. I can identify the catalyst for this stream of thought very precisely: yesterday afternoon, Miss Malaprop rolled back the cover of our backyard swimming pool (which I had thoroughly cleaned last week) to reveal an algal bloom had turned the sparkling blue water in our pool a deep emerald green. Since then, I have spent a substantial amount of time pool side, vacuuming debris from the bottom, backwashing and rinsing the filter, then scrubbing the walls and floor with a brush before adding a bottleful of a magical indigo elixir supplied by the very polite and patient assistant at our local pool shop. As the hours pass, the pool is gradually being restored to its former glory. Emerald green has given way to a deep aqua, followed by turquoise, and now the colour is definitely appearing far more blue than green.
Watching the transformation has been quite alluring — addictive, even. And definitely more productive than the several hours I spent worrying about the pool last night from about 2:45am onwards. Even so, this morning I was skeptical about the success of the whole process, and initially I did not think it had worked. But — with time, and a little faith — I have witnessed the colours change and the concerns that had plagued me overnight literally fade away. There is something about rapid change that I find both beguiling and satisfying, much like time-lapse photography (such as this clip filmed by Neil Bromhall). I can’t quite explain what makes it so enchanting but that, I suspect, is the very nature of enchantment. It’s a bit like being in Oz before the curtain was drawn back — though I am well and truly done with the colour emerald green right now?!
What else is going on? Well, apart from remedying the pool, I’ve been trying to remedy another “ailment”. It’s school holidays, so I’ve been hearing a lot of…back chat. This is partly, I suspect, because I have teenagers — who are often, by turns, tired and hungry — but also because we are all a bit worn out and frazzled after Term Three, especially since the last day of school ended up with Marvel Girl having a six hour stint in the local hospital with suspected appendicitis (it’s not; she’s fine).
I am trying, ever so carefully, to pick my battles. I am also trying to say less. Much less. I am trying to remember the words of Anais Nin: We do not see things as they are, we see things as we are. I am trying to apply that salient and sage piece of advice to my current situation and recognise teenagers and parents see things very, very differently, and then respond accordingly. And the back chat? I’m trying not to react. Trying. Still trying.
Which brings me, perhaps unsurprisingly, to a book I’m about to start reading. It’s called Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls Through the Seven Transitions into Adulthood and it’s by a clinical psychologist called Lisa Damour. The book was recommended by the Wellbeing Coordinator at the girls’ school, and the industry reviews I found suggested it was worth a read. Although I’ve not yet started it (full disclosure — I didn’t have the slightest inkling what the seven transitions might be until I looked at the table of contents), the quotation from Anna Freud the author chose to use at the beginning of the book made me feel like I was in the right place.
While an adolescent remains inconsistent and unpredictable in her behaviour, she may suffer, but she does not seem to me to be in need of treatment. I think that she should be given time and scope to work out her own solution. Rather, it may be her parents who need help and guidance so as to be able to bear with her. There are few situations in life which are more difficult to cope with than an adolescent son or daughter during the attempt to liberate themselves.
Anna Freud, 1958 (pronouns altered)
As a parent of two teens, I am seeing these attempts at liberation play out in different ways every day. I do want them to succeed, so I’ll keep trying. And while I do it, I’ll read the book.
The other thing I am attempting to do while parenting teenagers, is making sure that The Bloke and I are on the same page, which I do not via reading by eating! I very much doubt The Bloke will have time to read Lamour’s book, so every now and then we make sure we’re still connecting by heading out to dinner together. Last night we had some amazing high end Mexican fare at a local restaurant we’d been meaning to try for ages, complemented beautifully by a bottle of Californian Chardonnay. Despite having faced the challenge of the pool turning green, I am on holidays with the kids — unlike the Bloke. It was gratifying for me to watch him become increasingly calm and relaxed as the evening passed, even though he had to work again today. We make a point of discussing a multitude of things on date nights, and try to avoid topics like the kids or our respective To Do Lists or finances or work. While these things do crop up from time to time, we both make an effort to bring the conversation back to something positive, or to something we’re looking forward to (not that our “off limits” topics are necessarily negative, they’re just really easy to get mired in).
One of the best things about last night was that at the bottom of the menu was a very convenient “Trust the Chef” option with a set price. With no decisions necessary, we just sat back and enjoyed the parade of culinary surprises. And the food was glorious! Delicious tacos, fabulous fish and perfectly cooked pork, generous sides and a show-stopping pavlova to share for dessert. And while the restaurant was worth a re-visit, we’re making a real effort to go somewhere new every time we choose to go out, trying to support a variety of local businesses instead of the same ones over and again. So far, it’s a plan that is serving us well!
I’ve been admiring a few things on the box lately, including the Supermodels series on Apple+. There is something inherently nostalgic about watching the footage of these beautiful women and their extraordinary careers — it’s a combination of the fashion, the music, the hairstyles (OMG!) and the models’ explanations of and encounters with prevailing attitudes at the time. Watching it (I haven’t finished yet) is making me feel grateful for how far we have come, and thanking the old gods and the new for feminism.
On Stan I’ve started watching The Winter King, a retelling of the story of King Arthur. It’s in a similar vein to The Last Kingdom and was a timely find for me, having just read Alexandra Bracken’s novel Silver in the Bone, which also deals with many aspects of the Arthurian legend — and is worth a read, too. I finished binge watching Borgen not so long ago, which I absolutely adored. I know I’m late to the party on this one, but I thought Sidse Babett Knudsen was utterly brilliant as Birgitte Nyborg, I loved Birgitte Hjort Sørensen as Katrine Fønsmark and I had a real soft spot for Bennedikte Hansen as Hanne Holm. Peter Mygind was expertly Machiavellian as Lars Hesselboe, and Pilou Asbæk was just the right amount of unhinged as Kasper Juul.
I then proceeded to dip into a bunch of other things featuring Sidse Babett Knudsen, including a fabulous little movie Ehrengard: The Art of Seduction (which also stars Mikkel Boe Følsgaard in a very different role to that which he played in Borgen) and Inferno, the third and final film in the Da Vinci Code series which, to my delight, was set in Florence, Venice and Istanbul.
And that brings me, as always, to doing. At the moment I have a list of things I am working through and none of them is particularly exciting. But I am, slowly but surely, ticking them off (in between checking on the colour of the pool water) — and that is satisfying in itself. Sometimes we just need time to do the things that we have had on our lists for what seems like an eternity, even if we don’t particularly want to do them. So I’m making a point of getting the ticks, and celebrating them if they are big things. Especially when they’re boring things!
And when I’m through, I’ll probably get back to more thinking, hearing, reading eating, admiring and doing…
Huzzah! It’s the last day of winter here in the Antipodes, and there is already a hint of spring in the air.
I’m pushed for time today, so welcome to a rather express Edition of the THREAD – let’s jump in!
THINK | HEAR | READ | EAT | ADMIRE | DO
Strangely enough, I’ve been thinking about time management, and specifically about distractions. I’m one of those people who has been working from home since before the pandemic, and time management is something pride myself on being pretty good at. I think it’s also fair to say I’m experienced at navigating pathways between those devious, pesky things we call distractions — which can include anything from finding yourself suddenly possessed by an unscratchable urge to perform a chore you would otherwise find mind-numbingly boring, playing games on your phone or laptop (I’m looking at you, Wordle), or gazing blankly into the refrigerator until the annoying door alarm starts going off. Been there, done that, sent them all packing.
But when the first glimmerings of spring appear, I often want to get out amongst it instead of sitting at my desk. So this week, when my schedule was unexpectedly upended by a cancelled work placement, I’ve concentrated on putting all the things in all the boxes so I can create spaces in between where my writing can flow. I find that if I can plan out and “Tetris” all the stuff — from personal training, to kids’ extracurricular activities, to menu planning, to lunch with a friend, and even the many and various things seeking to distract me — the time I free up becomes…well, free. And when I’m free, the words can come in waves. I guess what I am trying to say is if you know yourself well enbough to identify your patterns of behaviour you can conquer any distractions, and my way of doing that (however incongruent it may sound) is by using boxes and waves.
Except sometimes things don’t go willingly into a box, which is where hearing comes in handy. Most parents know that if you sing something to a child, it becomes somehow more palatable — or maybe more like a game. Either that, or we’ve all been looking like complete loons while walking around messy living rooms singing “now it’s time to pack away” in happy, hopeful tones to our offspring. I’ve written before about how hard it is to stay cranky with your kids, for example, when you’re listening to disco music. Please give it a try if you don’t believe me — and remember, no matter how small or large, all kitchens are for dancing in.
Anyway, the same principle works for me when I’m struggling with adulting and feeling rather petulant (OK…I”ll admit it, downright childish) about it. If I’m not in the mood to go to personal training during the precisely allocated box I have timetabled for myself, for example, I put Madonna’s Ray of Light on in the car on the way to the gym and turn it up LOUD. If I can’t get into the right headspace to write, I try Ralph Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending. It’s still boxes and waves, really — just in musical form.
Reading is something I don’t usually have to put in a box, because I tend do it at the end of the day when I’m all snug in my PJs and ready for bed. But when I’m really busy and just want to hit the pillow at the end of the day, I find other boxes that allow me to fit my reading in — like when my daughter has her flute lesson. In this way, I’ve managed to read R F Kuang’s Babel, or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History, which is a fantastical historical novel my language loving father would have loved back before dementia robbed him of the ability to read. It’s a complex book dealing with equally complex themes (imperialism, colonialism, revolution, and how all of these intersect with academia), but at the centre of it all is the concept of translation. I wanted to love this novel, but found it kept me somehow at arms length — possibly because of the extensive use of footnotes (which may or may not be historically accurate, as it is a work of fiction after all), or maybe as a result of it’s scholarly tone. Did it remind me of the way I had to read when I was at university (which often for anything but pleasure)? Perhaps. That said, while I didn’t love it, I did enjoy it, and was glad to have read it.
Since then, I have started reading Pip William’s latest offering, The Bookbinder of Jericho. It is much easier going but so far it hasn’t engaged my attention to the point where I want to pick up the book instead of laying my head on the pillow…though I suspect says more about the nature of my life lately, rather than about the novel itself.
Our next topic — and also a great form of distraction — which is eating, and the simple story here is that I have been trying not to eat when I shouldn’t. As in I am still working on eating sensibly and only at mealtimes (after my peviously-reported tropical island gluttony), and so far this approach is working well.
Tonight we will have chicken schnitzel with a roast pumpkin salad, which involves not only the aforementioned pumpkin spiced up with some cumin and coriander, but also corn and black beans, toasted pepitas and a lime crema dressing. It’s delicious, and full of flavour. Tomorrow night it’s meant to be cold again — because spring is always a bit of a tease — so we will have roast lamb with baked vegetables and greens. Beyond that our meals are a bit of a mystery, but I’m sure all will become clear once I reach the appropriate box in which menu planning has been scheduled?!
When it comes to admiring, I managed to find time to watch Netflix’s latest offering in the Bridgerton franchise Queen Charlotte last week. It has all the usual Bridgerton fancies and follies: over the top costumes in riotous colours, wigs so resplendent they would make any self-respecting drag queen swoon, a smattering of sex scenes, and classical musical renderings of pop songs. But Queen Charlotte also has, at its heart, a beautiful and moving story of a couple living with and divided by mental illness. As someone who has witnessed the various ways generations of my family have dealt with living with bipolar disorder, I was genuinely moved by the depiction of the relationship between Queen Charlotte and King George III — and I am grateful that the producers of Queen Charlotte chose to tackle the subject matter rather than shying away from it. Mental illness can affect anyone, from commoners to kings, and I’m glad to see it being presented on screen rather than hidden away.
And finally, that brings us to doing. I’ve been doing rather a lot, hence all the boxes (and hopefully plenty of waves in between), but like rest of the Australian population there is one thing I have stopped everything else to do in the past month: watch our mighty Matildas play in the World Cup. While my knowledge of anything soccer-related is similar to that of Ted Lasso when he started out at Richmond FC — as in I can’t explain the offside rule but I think I know it when I see it?! — like most Australians I love sport (generally) and am now completely in love with the Matildas (specifically). And I do mean ALL of them, though I do have a particular soft spot for Mackenzie Arnold and think Hayley Raso’s hair ribbons are the bomb. I will never, ever forget the way I felt when Sam Kerr scored that amazing goal against the Lionesses, and I am inordinately proud — along with the rest of the country — of what the Matildas have done not just for women’s sport but for women in Australia and beyond.
Anyhoo, there’s no real topping the Matildas is there?
So best to wrap this up and attend to the next box full of “stuff”.
Another month has rolled around, and with it winter school holidays and both my kids’ birthdays. I know they’re getting older (obviously), but I find it interesting that they are now beginning to comment on how quickly time flies by. When they were little, they felt like eons or entire geologic eras passed between one birthday and the next, but now they are experiencing the passage of time in a different, far more adult, way.
Naturally, having teenaged children has the tendency to make me feel considerably older, too. But the thing that brought me up short recently was a conversation I had with a friend while out of a walk in the glorious winter sunshine, and she asked me about holidaying in Hawaii, as she’d never been. I feel very fortunate to have winged my way between Sydney and Honolulu quite a few times during the course of my life, but admit to being aghast when I realised my first Hawaiian vacation took place forty years ago when I was seven years old.
Gulp.
So let’s move on — life may be short, but it’s still for the living. Let’s dive in to the July 2023 THREAD.
THINK | HEAR | READ | EAT | ADMIRE | DO
I’ve been thinking, as I would imagine many people have, about Sinéad O’Connor. While she was best known for Nothing Compares 2 U, as news of her untimely death at the age of 56 has spread around the world, the song I have found myself listening to is I Am Stretched on Your Grave. Based on a translation of an anonymously written 17th century Irish poem, Táim sínte ar do thuama, she recorded the lyrics over the top of a drum beat with very little instrumental accompaniment (save for some fiddle at the end of the piece). You can see her performing it live here, if you’d like — I suspect that is how she would like us to remember her: powerful, passionate, with superb and subtle control of her instrument.
Despite living in the Antipodes, I feel like my generation grew up with a succession of Irish singers who provided the soundtrack to our formative years. Bono is the most obvious of these, and thankfully he is still with us. But I am also thinking specifically of Dolores O’Riordan now, sadly, of Sinéad O’Connor. Knowing that both of these awesome talents have left us saddens me more deeply than I expected it to. I’m also feeling a little downhearted that a whole bunch of kids are probably only discovering today what a incredible talent Sinéad O’Connor was — I hope they also find out how damn brave she was, too.
Rather than dwelling on sadness, however, it’s best that I move onto hearing. Strangely enough, I’ve been listening to another Irish voice, that of Cillian Murphy, who is probably my favourite actor of all time. I listened to a great interview he did with Marc Maron, whose WTF podcast is one I find myself dipping into from time to time with great enjoyment. I have not yet seen Murphy in Oppenheimer, because I want to see it (if possible, should the scheduling stars and planets align) in 70mm as Christopher Nolan intended it to be viewed.
I suspect Oppenheimer is going to be among the most important films of the decade, if not the century, and by all accounts Murphy delivers a truly impressive performance, along with a stellar supporting cast. What is so lovely about Maron’s interview with Murphy, however, is that ranges all over the place — from the various guitars they own, to what it’s like to live in Ireland, to Murphy’s upbringing — and intersperses some heavier material (primarily about the film) with funny anecdotes, including one about Marc Maron meeting Cillian Murphy at an airport and failing to recognise Christopher Nolan, who was sitting right beside him. All in all, it’s an entertaining podcast and I’m looking forward to seeing Oppenheimer as soon as possible.
I have been reading a lot more than usual lately, because school holidays have provided me with the time and space to do so. I have read a couple of thrillers/mysteries, such as Michael Robotham’s Lying Beside You and Sarah Penner’s The Lost Apothecary, and also re-read Raymond E Feist’s fantasy epic The Magician.
More recently, I picked up a copy of Shankari Chandran’s Song of the Sun God at Townsville airport and decided to buy it because the story begins in Ceylon in 1946. After reading The Seven Moons of Mali Almeida, I have been interested in reading other novels set in Sri Lanka, and this multi-generational family saga was compelling and beautifully written despite detailing the horrors of civil war and the challenges of migration. This book felt very alive to me, full of small but significant details that enriched the action. Specific ingredients are added in scenes where food is being prepared, for example, and the ordinariness of these actions only highlights the massive upheaval the family members are dealing with: physical violence, social dislocation, philosophical and religious disputes. Chandran’s descriptions are brief but evocative, deftly weaving together history and emotion and relationships:
The map stretched, inviting and blue across the wall. The world was such a vast place, surely ther ewas somewhere they could go: somewhere they would be safe from riots and growing rage.
I was delighed to learn that this week Shankari Chandran has won the Miles Franklin award for her latest novel, Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens. I know, having read Song of the Sun God, that the seemingly saccharine title will hide a book of depth that is unafraid to broach difficult topics, and am looking forward to reading it.
The other book I read and loved during the past month was Costanza Casati’s Clytemnestra, which is a retelling of the Greek tragedy from the perspective of one of the greatest figures of the Ancient World. The novel gains a sense of immediacy and accessibility from being written in the present tense: not only do we witness what is happening to Clytemnestra as it occurs, but we are also privy to her thoughts and feelings in those same moments. She becomes far more relateable, and as a result her quest for vengeance seems almost reasonable — even though she takes the lives of those who have betrayed her in brutal fashion. Clytemnestra was a magnifiently drawn character and the novel was a great read.
On to a different type of consumption now: eating. Oh boy…there are two parts to this section of the THREAD this month. First off, there’s the part where we went away on holidays and all the (delicious, amazing, high end restaurant quality) meals were included, so for a week I ate incredibly well but didn’t actually feel hungry again until I got home, so I probably ate too much. OK, let’s be clear. I know I ate too much. But the most extraordinary thing about that holiday was I didn’t have to plan or shop for or cook a meal for an entire week so it was totally WORTH IT!
Now that we’re home, I’m onto the second part. I’ve been working on providing the family with simple, tasty food. It might not be a fancy ceviche, or a differently themed cuisine each lunch time, or martinis by the infinity pool, but at least I’ve created some headspace to get back into eating well and as cleanly as possible. Tonight’s dinner? Swedish meatballs on cauliflower puree with broccoli. Last night? Pesto chicken with tomato and feta risoni and green beans. Tomorrow night? No flipping idea…that is tomorrow’s problem!
Speaking of problems (and freely acknowledging that most of mine are of the First World variety), you may recall a couple of months ago I finally finished watching The Americans. Working out what to follow such a show with was not easy — but I finally settled upon Schitt’s Creek as a palette cleanser, and that hilarious and beautifully executed sitcom well and truly did the trick. Various parts of Rose family parlance have subsequently entered our own family lexicon, and I imagine they will stay there for quite some time.
Since then, I’ve been admiring a few things on the small screen, including Shantaram on Apple+. I was initially hesitant to watch Shantaram, because I was not sure I would be convinced by Charlie Hunnam’s attempt at an Australian accent (and now, having watched it, I would give his efforts a solid B minus). I read Shantaram years ago, but not so recently that I could recall it in vivid detail. The storyline is compelling, not least because it’s based on the author’s real life (and crimes). The slums of Bombay in the 1980s are brilliantly brought to life — even if they were actually filmed in Thailand — though I was not particularly satisfied with the ending.
I then watched The Essex Serpent, starring Tom Hiddleston and Claire Danes, also on Apple+. The Essex Serpent is a period drama with moody visuals and interesting themes (think: science vs religion, women vs the patriarchy, rich vs poor). Both leads were eminently watchable (as always), the Essex coastline was suitably mysterious, and the hysteria generated by the “serpent” believable. I really loved Clémence Poésy as Stella Ransome, the ailing wife of the local vicar, Will Ransome (played by Hiddleston). Strangely enough, however, the ending of this show did not satisfy me either — it felt a little bit too neat. Humpf.
Anyway, that brings me finally to doing, and to our family holiday to the Great Barrier Reef. Despite dramas with planes on the way to and from Queensland (which included missing pilots, missed connections, an unexpected overnight stay in Brisbane on our way home and much gritting of teeth along the way), the vacation itself was spectacular and we were blessed with fine weather, even if it was a little windy at times.
In addition to the incredible food (which I mentioned above) we met some great people, including a lovely family from Switzerland who are currently living in Adelaide for a year. We also had some fantastic experiences: snokelling, hiking, sailing, paddle boarding, kayaking, and puttering around in dighies. One highlight of the trip was feeding fishy kitchen scraps to reef sharks off the resort’s jetty, another was watching glorious sunsets over the sea (which for this Eastcoast dweller is always a bonus). And as a final bonus, we saw some whales from the helicopter when we were transferring back to the mainland.
Anyway, that’s a wrap on the July THREAD.
I’m off to a themed trivia night I’ve been roped into and (no pun intended) have to get into my cow girl costume…fingers crossed we come home with a prize!
We’ve gone past the shortest day here in the Antipodes! The Winter Solstice is a milestone I mark each year, not least because it means that from this point onwards the days are getting longer again. Admittedly, we still have to get through that small botheration called winter, but nobody has really noticed much of that around here lately because we’ve all been glued to various devices trying to get tickets to see Taylor Swift.
So, keeping with our theme of brevity, let’s jump straight into the June THREAD.
THINK | HEAR | READ | EAT | ADMIRE | DO
I’ve been thinking a lot about equity and fairness during the past week or, perhaps more specifically, since Taylor Swift announced the dates for the Australian leg (such as it is) of her Eras tour. As regular readers of this blog will know, I live with a pair of Swifties — one diehard, one far more nonchalant — so the news that Tay Tay was finally heading Down Under was met with great excitement.
However, as details of concert dates and pre-sales and ticket pricing began to filter through, my cogitations began in earnest. The amount I would have to spend on some of the packages available to attend just one of these highly desirable concerts is equivalent to the amount we would normally spend on a weeklong family holiday. Could I justify the expense? Was it fair of me to tell my children that if I did manage to get tickets, they might not get Christmas and birthday presents this year? Would Marvel Girl even cope if we did not secure this most elusive of bookings?
I’ve been hearing a lot of the same sorts of questions from other parents, and from other people who are fans. The hype surrounding the Eras tour has been phenomenal, and I know that this concert is not simply a “bit of a gig”, but a full blown stadium spectacular choreographed down to the last pyrotechnically enhanced millisecond.
I’m also conscious that, if I did get my hands on Taylor Swift tickets, this would be Marvel Girl and Miss Malaprop’s first proper concert (because at this point I’m not counting the Babies Proms at the Sydney Opera House folks…that ship sailed so long ago it’s halfway to Haiti by now). I’m also acutely, painfully aware that — thanks to a global pandemic and a bunch of lockdowns — my kids have missed out on unforgettable experiences like this.
So, like so many others, I started reading all the fine print. And the presale information. And began setting alarms and checking login details and updating passwords and acquiring ticketing codes and taking a long hard look at my bank balance. I also started reading Curtis Sittenfeld’s new book Romantic Comedy, and had been perusing a bunch of travel guides (dreaming of a European vacation before the girls get to the pointy end of high school), but all these had to be put on the back burner. Tay Tay was coming to town, and I had to be ready.
It was around this point that the stress eating began. I can safely say that I have eaten more chocolate in the past week than I ever ate at Easter time.
I may also, equally sadly, have fallen into the trap of eating cheese and drinking wine. So much so that The Bloke — who, by now, had joined the feeding frenzy — went to the trouble of finding Tim Minchin’s hilarious song about cheese on Spotify or YouTube or some other thing and began playing it for me in a very misguided show of what he called ‘support’. I think it’s fair to say that Minchin’s lyrics about him loving cheese but cheese not loving him did apply, but it was not The Bloke’s finest moment?!
As things turned out, however, it did become one of Miss Malaprop’s finest moments, one that I am still admiring. The first presale came and went with a giant crash (brought to you by American Express), and despite frantic — and might I also say valiant — efforts on my part to navigate some sort of safe passage through the maze of the interwebs to ticket ownership, I came up empty handed. By some small miracle, one of The Bloke’s staff got wind of what we were up to (perhaps because there were several fraught phonecalls to his office as we kept him apprised of our lack of success), and she managed to find her way onto the presale site…but the best she could come up with was a pair of tickets (at a whopping $900 each), and I was determined that both my girls would be coming with me to the show or none of us would go at all.
It was at this point that Miss Malaprop, bless her cotton socks, piped up that if we could only get two tickets we should nab them and that I should take Marvel Girl, superfan as she is of Ms Swift. Her generosity and selflessness caught me off guard, and made me even more determined to get her a ticket as well…if that was humanly possible?!
Which brings us, of course to doing. By the time the next presale rolled around (OK, it was only two days later but I can tell you the hours drag until the event begins), we were ready. We were SO ready. Three laptops and three phones were logged on and ready to enter the Ticketek lounge — home of the infamous blue bar of doom (if you were there you know what it is I speak of) — and after 10:00am the minutes, which had so recently felt like they were lagging by, suddenly began to fly past as I knew there were tickets flying into people’s online shopping carts faster than you could say …Ready For It.
And then, about twenty adrenaline-filled minutes in, The Bloke called. It turned out that half the staff in his office, upon hearing of our plight (first world problem as it absolutely is), had registered for presale codes and were all trying to get us tickets as well. And — wait for it — the same staff member who had got through to the elusive Amex presale had been miraculously plucked from the Ticketek lounge (which we are all now aware is anything but a queue), deposited on the hallowed seat selection page and beaten the famous clock to secure us a trio of tickets for Taylor Swift’s opening night in Sydney.
We were gobsmacked. Celebratory. Relieved. Grateful. Even a little bit tearful, in Marvel Girl’s case. Miss Malaprop was practically turning cartwheels and the cat, never one to be left out, got the zoomies and began racing up and down the stairs.
I still can’t quite believe our luck, not to mention the generosity of The Bloke’s staff. But that’s good people for you — they chip in and help make the impossible somehow, unexpectedly, brilliantly possible.
We’re going to Taylor Swift.
And until a Taylor’s version is released, that’s a wrap on the June THREAD.
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.
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.
I’m not entirely sure who said it (though I strongly suspect it was C S Lewis), but there’s an old saying that goes something like this:
Isn’t it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back everything is different?
It doesn’t feel like more than a month has gone by since I sat down and wrote the first of these THREAD posts, but here I am again. Only a few weeks ago that I was musing about raising teenagers, reading Jonathan Franzen and reminiscing about our (now far less) recent trip to New Zealand. That holiday feels like an eternity ago, now we are well and truly in the swing of all things school and work.
Since it’s been a busy month, I’ve got a bunch of things buzzing around in my head — so best to let them out.
THINK |HEAR |READ | EAT |ADMIRE |DO
This month I have been Thinking about the imminent retirement of Adam Bull from the Australian Ballet. I have genuinely enjoyed watching him dance over the years, and am sorry the blasted pandemic meant I had to put my ballet subscription on hold, meaning I will probably not get to see him take the stage again. I’ve never been a dancer (my body favours sporty stuff rather than the life balletic), but I have come to love and appreciate the athleticism, grace beauty of both classical and contemporary ballet. I will be sad to see Adam Bull’s tall and striking figure leave the company after more than two decades, but am grateful to have seen him perform.
I’ve also been thinking about how various artforms inform and inspire each other, largely because I have just finished reading Maggie O’Farrell’s book The Marriage Portrait. The novel opens with Lucrezia de’ Medici, Duchess of Ferrara realising — on page one, no less — that her husband intends to murder her, and that the portrait he has commissioned of her is being painted in isolated castello precisely because that is where he intends to carry out the fell deed without anyone realising or interfering. Needless to say, I was pretty much hooked from the initial paragraphs and finished the book in a night.
The painting which inspired the novel is generally attributed to Florentine artist Agnolo Bronzino, and also served as the stimulus for Robert Browning’s poem “My Last Duchess”. Like O’Farrell’s novel, the poem has an equally memorable opening:
“That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,/Looking as if she were alive.”
When I first looked at Bronzino’s portrait, I was struck by how modern Lucrezia appears — and how worldly, despite her youth. She did not survive her marriage to the Duke of Ferrara, and died suddenly at the age of 16. Lucrezia’s dress in the painting might be dreadfully outmoded, but her expression is intelligent and her gaze direct. I went down quite the rabbithole trying to figure out who she reminded me of, and stumbled across this comparison, which seemed rather apt:
Fortunately, Anya Taylor-Joy is very much alive, and I suspect she’d do a great job of playing Lucrezia de’ Medici if The Marriage Portrait ever made it to the big screen — much like Scarlett Johansson did in Girl with a Pearl Earring, which was based on Tracy Chevalier’s novel of the same name, which in turn was inspired by the painting by Johannes Vermeer. Or how Adam Bull played the Prince inTchaikovsky’s ballet The Sleeping Beauty, which was based on the fairy tales of Charles Perrault.
Is everything created somehow borrowed, rather than brand new? I’m not sure…but it’s certainly given me a lot to think about.
I finally got around to Hearing this interview Helen Garner gave Annabel Crabb late last year. Recorded to mark the occasion of Garner’s 80th birthday, it is a thought provoking hour of insights into the life of artists generally and writers particularly. I suspect one of the main reasons I enjoyed listening to this so much was that this particular interview was a discussion between two women I admire (and whose general vocabulary I covet). Then again, in my experience it is always pleasurable to listen to intelligent, articulate and opinionated people discuss…things. Anything, really. If they are speaking of something about which you know nothing, you have the opportunity to learn something new. Perhaps more importantly, if they are discussing something with which you are familiar, you may gain a fresh perpsective or better understanding of someone else’s point of view.
In any case, Garner spoke candidly about many things, including the self-doubt which plagues her whenever she is writing something new, the book she believes to be her worst, her views on feminism, the controversy provoked by The First Stone and her understanding of how and why that particular storm erupted and how it appears differently to her now. She also talked about her numerous journals, leading Crabb to extract a promise from her not to burn any more of them. I found the interview thoroughly entertaining — much as I did Garner’s book Everywhere I Look, which just so happens to contain a superb extended essay about the Australian Ballet.
In addition to Maggie O’Farrell’s The Marriage Portrait, I have been doing quite a lot of Reading lately. Truly excitingly, I strongly suspect some of the books I have read lately are Great Books (and yes, those capitals are Definitely Required). Last weekend I finished reading Ian McEwan’s lastest, Lessons, which was brilliant but requires further reflection beforeI write about it. A few weeks ago, however, I finished Shehan Karunatilaka’s outstanding novel The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, which won the 2022 Booker Prize. This book got under my skin, and well and truly into my subconscious. Quite literally, I found myself dreaming things based on the pages I had read before I went to sleep — and, not surprisingly given the novel details the post-mortem exploits of a war photographer, they were not particularly pleasant things.
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida is both a ghost story and a murder mystery, but is neither in the traditional sense. Set against the backdrop of the Sri Lankan Civil War, the novel demands you engage with all sorts of things including politics, religion, gender, class, friendship and family dynamics — the works. Despite concerning the exploits of a dead photographer during his first week an the Afterlife populated by supernatural beings, the book brims with roiling mass of humanity. This is a novel of colour and movement, peppered with dialects and idiomatic speech, bursts of hilarity and moments of adroitly observed insight, like this one:
Evil is not what we should fear. Creatures with power acting in their own interest: that is what should make us shudder.
I highly recommend The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida. A word to the wise, however: if you do choose to read it, really go with it. Suspend your disbelief and you’ll be in for quite a ride.
I next read Leigh Bardugo’s book Hell Bent, her sequel to Ninth House. Even though this is a fantasy novel with substantial supernatural elements, reading Hell Bent after The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida felt like returning to a reassuringly familiar world: not only is the geographical setting real, but the temporal setting is also close to present day. Additionally, the main characters are distinctly human…until they’re not. No spoilers here! Though I’m genuinely looking foward to the next instalment of Galaxy Stern’s adventures.
In terms of Eating, I’ve been getting a lot more organised and have resumed menu planning. Not only does this save me time and reduces my mental load, but it also boosts the variety factor when it comes to family meals. The added benefit of posting the week’s menu ahead of time is that other family members can also pitch in and start meal prepping if needs be (not that this has ever happened…I live in hope). Knowing I have increased work commitments coming up next term, I am making an effort to get into good habits now and and am reminding myself of meals I can cook ahead or dinners that are “one pot wonders”. In this vein I’ve also been calling to mind various traybake recipes, and have been figuring out what (other than muffins) I can make as lunchbox treats.
Since we’ve had a long hot March, we’re still enjoying our salad days — especially the salads featured in Hetty McKinnon’s brilliant cookbook Community: Salad Recipes from Arthur Street Kitchen. I don’t think I own a single coobook I have made more meals from than this one, and our most recent discovery from this gem is Pumpkin with Chickpeas, Toasted Coconut and Lemon Tahini (except we ditched the Lemon Tahini dressing in favour or a bit of extra lime juice). It’s a Fijian inspired salad, packed with fabulous flavours and topped with the satisfying crunch of toasted pepitas. It’s also truly delicious.
Admiring is one of my favourite sections of the THREAD, and this month I cannot go past the brilliantly and blackly comic television show Bad Sisters. Set in present day Dublin and featuring five sisters, the first episode features the funeral of John Paul — husband of the second eldest of the Garvey sisters, Grace. It turns out JP, during his life, was quite a piece of work (abusive, controlling, manipulative and generally nasty) so it may come as no surprise that the storyline flip flops between the past — during which all four of Grace’s sisters have some sort of a go at bumping off their evil brother-in-law to rescue their sister and niece — and the present, when a harried and hapless insurance agent is desperately trying to prove JP’s death has been caused by the Garvey sisters’ foul play so he does not have to pay out a life insurance claim. It is not immediately apparent who or what has killed John Paul, but the show is so darkly funny and entertaining that Marvel Girl and I binged the ten episodes over the course of a single weekend.
Back at the beginning of the month I also found myself admiring the glorious scenery that forms the backdrop to Yellowstone. I had been putting off watching Season 6 of this fabulous show, because I didn’t want to watch an episode a week. (I also suspect I was feeling slightly superstitious about watching the most recent season because I watched the other five while I was isolating when I had COVID, and a fresh wave was hitting around the time Season 6 came out). In any case, I adore the scenery in the show — which could probably, given how many people fight over the land in Yellowstone, be counted as a character in itself — particularly as it reminds me of the country near where I spent part of my childhood when our family moved to Canada for a couple of years. So, as it turns out, I watch Yellowstone the nostalgia it evokes for me just as much as the drama — and for Kelly Reilly’s vivid portrayal of badass Beth Dutton. Just as an aside — did you know Kelly Reilly is English? Her accent in the show is pretty tight.
And that brings us, as always, to Doing, though this month one of the main things I have been doing is waiting for and then celebrating the return of another stellar television series: Ted Lasso. Season 3 is landing at last, and not a moment too soon! There are so many things that I (along with the rest of the known world) love about Ted Lasso. The writing is so sharp it sparkles, and the performances — especially now we are three seasons in — are so well-honed they truly shine. Rather than fangirling at length over the cast, because I can’t think of a single one of them I don’t love, let’s just leave it by saying there are so many lines from this show that have found their way into our family’s daily vocabulary — not least of which is simply, “Oi!” — that I can’t imagine life without Ted Lasso. It’s that good.
Other things I have been doing have included making a concerted effort to maintain good hydration and to keep stringing together sessions with my personal trainer. PT sessions are easier to keep up with (you schedule regular sessions, you turn up: “Simples” as the meerkats say). Drinking enough water? You’d think it would be so straightforward, but making and sustaining this habit is taking me longer than I expected. I am incredibly grateful to my girls, who thoughtfully presented me with a large Ravenclaw drinkbottle for my birthday, because I now try to chug my way through this several times a day. I’m getting better with hydration, and I’m deadset sure it will be worth the effort, so…go me?!
Anyway, we’ve reached the end of the THREAD for March 2023. Like a piece of string, I’m never sure how long it’s going to be and this one has been a bit of an epic, (so good on you if you’ve stuck with me and got this far), so my head is definitely less “buzzy” than it was when I started. As always, I’d love to hear what’s buzzing around in your head or what you’ve been THREADing your way through, so leave a comment if you’d like to.
Blue Jai: 