Category Archives: Writing

Sprechen Sie Liebe?

Posted on by • Posted in Christmas, Musings, Parenting, Uncategorized, Writing • Tagged , , , , , , , , , , • Leave a comment
Darth Christmas

‘Tis the season, people…

‘Tis the season…so they say.

The season of attending a seemingly endless whirl of Christmas parties and festive functions involving various degrees of fun, stress, inebriation and/or sugar.

The season of juggling multiple (not to mention competing) schedules to ensure that everyone gets to their ballet concerts, client drinks, end of year school assemblies and only Rudolph knows what else — and woe betide you if you forgot to charge your phone and failed to video your offspring’s rousing rendition of Jingle Bells for the grandparents to watch later.

And the season of wondering just how Marvel Girl’s school managed to schedule a swimming carnival and a carols night on the same date…and of trying to remember to smile (rather than grin fixedly or simply scream) when Santa Claus turns up on a trailer with a sack filled with brightly coloured lollipops to hand to your already delirious preschooler a full hour after her bedtime…

Elves

One for my bookclub lovelies…

It really is the season, the silliest of seasons, perhaps…but in amongst all the absurdity and there’s still a lot to be thankful for:

I remain (eternally) grateful, for example, that the lovely ladies in my book club are all firmly of the view that licensed premises are the best place to convene our meetings — particularly if there’s a courtesy bus to take us home.  Every last one of us will put up with our husbands’ japes about our reading glasses having stems rather than lenses if we can be left to talk about our…er, um, chosen book — yes, I’m sure it was a book we were discussing —  every six weeks or so, no matter what time of year it is.

Nov-Dec 2015 020

Nobody likes a half-assed jingler…part of my Christmas wall in my kitchen.

 

I am equally glad that Christmas gives me a brilliant excuse to indulge my love of cheap and tacky decorations and to bedeck my home with banners, candles, baubles, wreaths and whatever else we have to hand.  I love that my little Miss Malaprop reminds me most days in December that “there’s no such thing as too much tinsel!”, but I am also quite relieved that Marvel Girl was prepared to change the tone of her letter to Santa so it didn’t bear quite so much resemblance to a solicitor’s letter of demand.

I am definitely appreciative of the fact that my children are learning to verbalise what they are feeling at this time of year: from the dizzying, wondrous, joyfilled, frequently candy-cane fuelled heights, right down to the despairing depths of the massively over-tired, over-excited, and over-just about everything.

fabulous

It’s easy to run out of steam, riding the Christmas Crazy Train…

I will admit that my heart did break a little bit this morning when a pair of mournful greeny-blue eyes looked up at mine and Miss Malaprop confessed that “her love tank was not very full”: it seems that riding the Christmas Crazy Train isn’t always easy, especially for small people desperately counting down the days until the arrival of one S Claus.

But I am also grateful that she spoke up, so I was able to surprise her with a love-tank filling visit to The Kitchen Nook, her favourite cafe to hang out in before preschool, and that upon arriving there we simply sat down and were presented with our regular order (one life-preserving long black, one not-so-hot chocolate) with a smile and a nod — without even having to ask for it.

It’s the little things, people…they don’t go unnoticed, and they count — regardless of the season.

Because that’s all it took, really: it may not seem like much, but a few minutes spent sitting together in a welcoming cafe, sipping our drinks and having a bit of a chat was all that was required to help us rediscover our Christmas spirit.

Tinsel

Spend time, speak love…

And when you strip away all the parties and presents, the baubles and the bling, and even the tinsel, that’s what this season is really about: spending time with people you love, and making sure that you’re speaking the same language.

So — sprechen sie liebe?

Parlez-vous l’amour?

Do you? Go on…’tis the season.

 

 

 

The Healing Power of Disco

Posted on by • Posted in dance, Disco, Gotham Days, music, Musings, Parenting, Uncategorized, Writing • Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , • 2 Comments
Disco ball

Disco, kids’ tantrums and crime drama? It’ll all make sense soon…

So I’ve discovered a new phenomenon this week: the healing power of disco. It has been a two phase discovery — partly inspired by a mega-meltdown from Miss Malaprop, and the rest by Stellan Skarsgård’s mesmerising performance of a police officer grappling with mental illness and the murder of his partner in River.

Yeah, I know: disco, a child’s tantrum and a crime drama are not usually things that get mentioned in the same sentence, but bear with me here — even if it’s only because the silly season officially starts today.

To be honest, it was watching River that came first, and provided me with the inspiration for dealing slightly differently with Miss Malaprop’s apocalyptic outburst yesterday morning (OK, it probably wasn’t quite that bad…it just felt like it at the time).

River is definitely not your average police procedural — it’s far too psychological and, dare I say it, Shakespearian for that. And despite the fact that Swedish Skarsgård plays the lead (and is in virtually every scene of the series’ six episodes), it’s not a Scandinavian crime drama either. Brilliantly and elegantly written by Abi Morgan, it’s a BBC production that follows the increasingly unstable detective John River (Skarsgård, obviously), who is — quite literally — haunted by his partner, Stevie (Nicola Walker), as he attempts to unravel who was responsible for her murder, a traumatic event he had the misfortune to witness.

River

Stellan Skarsgård and Nicola Walker at their brilliant best in River: “Madness can bring its own kind of clarity”, but a bit of Disco helps…

It’s compelling viewing, as dark and disturbed as River’s own mental state, yet punctuated with moments of startling insight into the beauty and fragility of humanity. And over the top of it all? A sparkling soundtrack full of the disco hits Stevie loved.

Oh I love to love…but my baby just loves to dance, he wants to dance, he loves to dance, he’s got to dance…

I’m not going to say any more about what happens to River, other than to say that I think the series is so good it probably deserves multiple viewings, that I am in total agreement with Michael Hogan’s assessment of Skarsgård’s handling of the final episode:

Skarsgård delivered a powerhouse performance: sad and soulful in one scene, sardonically spiky and manically energetic in the next. With his craggy face and crumpled demeanour, the haunted detective has prowled the streets of east London like a wounded bear, pawing at thin air as he pursued his prey.

Oh — I should probably also mention that since watching River, The Bloke and I have been humming disco anthems for at least a week now. And smiling at each other when we do. Not just because we know that we’re both remembering how Stevie made River smile when she sang along to disco songs while they drove around East London, but because it’s really hard to be grumpy when there’s disco in the house.

And that, of course, brings me to the god-awful Gotham morning I had with Miss Malaprop: what do you do when your younger child, sleep-deprived and still sugar-high after her very first camping trip, completely loses it before preschool?

Disco kitchen

Disco: my new remedy for counteracting meltdowns.

You dig out the Greatest Hits of Boney M, that’s what you do. Because it really is hard to be grumpy when there’s disco in the house.

Admittedly, it did take a little while, a whole lot of hugs (plus a hot chocolate with big AND small marshmallows), but before too long, Boney M were working their disco magic in my kitchen. And before long, there were smiles all around.

So this silly season, if the need arises, give it a spin at your house and embrace the healing power of disco…you may even discover yourself asking Santa to bring you a mirror ball to add some extra sparkle to your kitchen this Christmas.

Oh I love to love…but my baby just loves to dance, he wants to dance, he loves to dance, he’s got to dance…

Best wishes for surviving the silly season from Blue Jai.

And good luck trying to get that song out of your head now, too…

 

The Well-Daemoned Creative

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EudaimoniaThe Ancient Greeks, it seems to me, knew stuff.

Lots of stuff.

Especially the sort of stuff that goes on inside human heads. In fact, thousands of years ago, they had sorted out more stuff than I can even imagine (and, as Han Solo once said to Luke Skywalker, I can imagine a quite a bit).

And they also had words for things to explain just how well they understood stuff — amazing words like eudaimonia. Sure, it might be a bit of mouthful to the average English speaking Joe or Jai, but when I discovered the word (this morning, straight after the courier delivered a parcel of books to my front door), I felt those teeny tiny hairs on the back of my neck rise. In a good way, people.

Eudaimonia translates as “human flourishing”, and was used in ancient Greece to describe the highest degree of happiness, a state of being characterised by not only by happiness itself, but also by health and prosperity. Sounds good, doesn’t it?

But it’s the etymology of the word that gives my inner geek the tingles: it comes from the Greek words eu, meaning ‘good’ and daimon, meaning ‘guardian spirit’. And the exciting part, as Elizabeth Gilbert explains in her book Big Magic, is that when you put those words together you get “well-daemoned”, or “nicely taken care of by some external divine creative spirit guide”. (And, yes, you now have to imagine me delivering my best Molly Meldrum impression when I tell you to do yourself a favour and get a copy of Big Magic…it’s an absorbing read).

But, as usual, I digress — let’s get back to eudaimonia. The idea that creative inspiration is something external to one’s self is not unique to the Greeks. The Romans, those other giants of the ancient world, also externalised the concept. As Gilbert says:

The Romans had a specific term for that helpful house elf. They called it your genius — your guardian deity, the conduit of your inspiration. Which is to say, the Romans didn’t believe that an exceptionally gifted person was a genius; they believed that an exceptionally gifted person had a genius.

In this ego-driven twenty-first century world, the ancient perspective is remarkably refreshing: that creativity is bestowed, by a genius the artist might be obliged to thank for the inspiration. Or, conversely, should the artist’s work be found somehow lacking, the same genius could be called upon to take some of the blame. Takes the pressure off, doesn’t it, creative types? Pesky old ego is removed from the equation…and, in Gilbert’s words once again, the artist is protected: “Protected from the corrupting influence of praise. Protected from the corrosive effects of shame.”

Inside JobBut there is a catch.

(You know there always is).

In order to get close to anything resembling eudaimonia, this highest level of human happiness, you have to do the hard yards too. It’s not as simple as having some Jiminy Cricket-like muse sitting on your shoulder telling you what to do — there’s not much point in having an external creative spirit guiding your creative pursuits if you don’t actively pursue them. Not surprisingly, human flourishing doesn’t just happen: it demands that we show up, that we find time, that we live authentically — in alignment with those things that make us our best selves.

 

AristotleAnyone who creates regularly and deliberately will tell you that yes, there are those fabled golden moments when whatever you are creating flows from you effortlessly. They are magical moments, and I do mean that literally. But the point is you have to be there, already creating, for those moments to happen. And no one can do that for you. You have to have the courage to do it for yourself.

It’s about following your passion, in whatever small moments are available to you. It’s about discovering, as Aristotle suggested, where the needs of the world and your talents intersect, and finding your vocation. Don’t get me wrong — I’m not advocating chucking in your job, leaving your family or withdrawing from society to pursue the creative: my strong suspicion is that you can’t get close to eudaimonia unless you’re actively involved in all those things, and in whatever you are inspired to create.

So find the time, if you can, to do what makes your soul sing.

ScrapsListen to that funny little guardian spirit — the one who has either been waiting patiently for you, or has been yammering away at you to do something for so long that it might just fall off your shoulder in shock when you finally pick up that paintbrush, or write that poem, or sew that dress.

Let’s honour creativity and make it an essential part of our lives — for our happiness, health and prosperity.

Let’s be more than humans being.

Let’s become humans flourishing.

 

 

 

Because it matters…

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Audra McDonald: Build a Bridge

Audra McDonald: Build a Bridge

Last weekend I had the inestimable privilege of hearing Audra McDonald sing with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Performing the final concert of a lengthy tour, she lit up the Sydney Opera House stage, singing celebrated Broadway tunes and other, lesser-known numbers: everything from George Gershwin’s Summertime to Kate Miller-Heidke’s Facebook Song.

At the end of the show, the vast majority of audience members rose to their feet and gave McDonald the standing ovation she richly deserved. And she rewarded us with not one, but two encores, the second being Somewhere Over The Rainbow, which she prefaced by explaining that she is a passionate advocate of equality — and particularly of Marriage Equality.

And that’s when it hit me: that Sydney, the city I live in and the city I love, is one of the few places Audra McDonald would have visited on her extensive tour where Marriage Equality does not exist.

And it bugged me. It rankled.

Now, as anyone who follows the Blue Jai Blog with any regularity will tell you, when something bothers me this is where I come to make sense of it. And they would also tell you that I’m not usually one to use this blog to talk about anything particularly controversial (like politics or religion, for example), and there’s a good reason for that: what you believe is your business, and what I believe is mine. It’s that simple — really.

To be clear, the lack of Marriage Equality in Australia is not something I am directly affected by: I’m a heterosexual female who is married to a heterosexual male. We had lived together for years before we tied the knot, we owned real property together, we even had joint custody of a cat (a British Blue; thanks for asking, catlovers). For various reasons — most of which revolve around me being far too stubborn and sassy for my own good — it took The Bloke and me the better part of a decade to set up a joint bank account (you know, a regular transaction account that allows you both to see exactly where the money is being spent, right down to the last bookshop and cafe dollar), but we got there in the end.

But here’s the thing: in days past — probably more recently than we’d like to admit — cohabitation prior to marriage was frowned upon. Female ownership of property was unlawful. With the exception of caring for a small furry domestic animal, pretty much all that The Bloke and I did prior to getting married was, at one point or another, either socially unacceptable or legally prohibited. And while my inner cynic may suspect that Ann Patchett was onto something when she observed that opening a joint bank account is “a moment of trust and commitment the likes of which most wedding vows couldn’t touch”, the fact remains that nearly ten years ago, The Bloke and I were able to stand up in front of our family and friends and make a public promise to love each other and to try to do the right thing by each other for the rest of our lives.

We got married. And it mattered.

Discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identification? To me, it just doesn't add up...

Discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identification? To me, it just doesn’t add up…

Now, I’m not about to wade into the troubled waters that swirl around the various arguments for or against Marriage Equality, because I don’t find political wrangling or religious rhetoric particularly appealing. (Ever.)

But what I will share are my musings about why I suspect achieving Marriage Equality in Australia would be a good thing — not specifically for me (an already married mother of two), but for our society.

First of all, I want to live in a society that does not discriminate on the basis of sex, gender, race, religion, political persuasion, eye colour or even the length of your armpit hair (let alone whether you choose to wax it, shave it, or dye it green). I believe we all have a right to live in such a society, and to participate in the democratic processes that protect that right.

Thinking

Yes, yes — I know we’re not discussing war or the end of the world, but in my opinion the Twelfth Doctor makes a powerful argument for social evolution: “Thinking…it’s just a fancy word for changing your mind”.

I want to live in a society that is evolutionary, that adapts and responds to change instead of saying, “but we’ve always done it this way”. Social evolution has enabled me, a woman, to own property. To vote. To receive (supposedly) equal pay for equal work. As Charles Darwin said, “It’s not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one that is most responsive to change.” And, to my mind, Marriage Equality is not the only issue challenging our society to adapt — combating global warming, closing the wealth gap, ending family violence would all go on that list too. But our responses need to reflect our society as it is today. Why? Well, as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said recently: “Because it’s 2015”.

I want to live in a society where, if either one of my children comes home one day and says, “I’ve met the most incredible human being, and I love them and want to spend the rest of my life with them — I want to marry them,” they can do so. Legally. No matter who the other person is.

Love is precious. Love is valuable. Love is magnificent, it is mighty, it is miraculous. Love transcends sex and gender, politics and religion, culture and race, and it’s definitely got it all over joint bank accounts.

So if two people — any two people — love each other so much that they are prepared to stand up, publicly, and make a lifelong commitment to each other? Well, after all these musings, I know I’d like to live in a society where they can get married.

Not just because it’s 2015.

Because it matters.

The Real Pengilly

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Lollipop hero

The Lollipop Man — or Crossing Guard, to you non-Australian types…

Every now and then, a person pops into your life who brings a smile to your face just about every time you see them. They might not be someone you’re particularly close to, but you see them often enough to know their name and to stop to have a quick chat about the state of the world when you see them, instead of just passing them by with a smile and a nod. These people are positive presences in the world — the kind of folks who restore your faith in humanity, and who make this planet a better place to live.

Today, I want to salute a man whose smiling face and cheery welcome brightens our lives — twice a day, Monday through Friday: our favourite Lollipop Man, Drew Pengilly.

For those of you who are unused to the unique way in which Australians name objects and occupations, the term “Lollipop Man” does not mean that Drew works in a candy store — as if I’d let my kids anywhere near a lolly shop twice every weekday.  It means he is the Crossing Guard who stops the traffic at the pedestrian crossing near Marvel Girl’s school and Miss Malaprop’s preschool. He’s the guy who keeps us safe.

Why “Lollipop Man”? Well, the stop sign Drew carries looks like a giant red lollipop. Obviously. (And, equally obviously, Australians don’t feel the need to name things quite as literally as they do in North American other countries — which is also why we drive our cars through roundabouts, walk on pavements, ride up and down in lifts, dry things with tea towels and wear thongs on our feet.)

But all this is beside the point. Drew, our Lollipop Man, is our hero in a high-vis vest — and here’s why:

Drew remembers all our names — and I mean all our names, including children, animals and sometimes even teddy bears —  and he greets us every morning with a welcoming smile that makes you forget, momentarily, the massive struggle it was to simply get out the door (you know the one, where you yell random words like “teeth”, “shoes” or “schoolbag” to unresponsive children in various states of dishevelment while holding an increasingly cold cup of tea).

Drew also notices details: he spots recently lost teeth, merit awards, band aids on injured knees, new shoes, haircuts, and all manner of minutiae at ten paces, and celebrates these little things with a high five or commiserates with a sympathetic word or two.

Drew is remarkably adept at picking which child is hiding within which costume come Book Week every year, and he’s also very good at remembering kids’ birthdays — which may or may not have something to do with the fact that he gets reminded exactly how many sleeps it is until the birthday of the child in question every time they cross the road (and yes, I do mean every time).

Drew is also brilliant at offering words of encouragement and praise — particularly to the preschoolers who visit his crossing each afternoon, proffering whatever artistic (and I use that word loosely) creations they have fashioned that day in his general direction. It doesn’t matter whether it is a stick covered in glitter, a page covered in random blobs of paint, or a couple of boxes and cardboard tubes taped together, Drew is always ready with an enthusiastic comment or an admiring remark…and those little people walk off that crossing feeling ten feet taller than when they stepped onto it.

October 2015 027

Thank you Drew! Goodbye and good luck!

But now, alas, our days with Drew have drawn to a close: he and his lovely wife moving house, and today is his last day of being our very own Lollipop Man before they head south.

Needless to say, Drew will be sadly missed.

Drew, thank you for brightening our mornings and afternoons, for being one of those people who makes a this world a happier, more positive place to live. And thanks for the multitude of “lollies” you have pretended to dispense to the my kids and their little mates — you’re the Lollipop Man they will never forget.

Move over McCoy — we’ve had the Real Pengilly.

UPDATE FOR FRESHIE PEEPS: Don’t despair…Drew’s last day is actually next Friday…so y’all still have time to say so long! Apologies for the error — Blue Jai 🙂

And if you have enjoyed this post and want more musings from the Daydream Believer delivered straight to your inbox whenever they appear, click the follow button at the top right of this page…go on, it’ll be fun!

Jacaranda Dreaming

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Jacaranda Trees...these ones are near The Bloke's work.

Jacaranda Trees…these ones are near The Bloke’s work.

It’s Jacaranda season in Sydney — signalling the time of year when our city begins the swing into summer and lets loose its inner show off. All around this harbour town the treeline is splashed with blossoming bursts of colour, and before too long the streets will be carpeted in thousands of impossibly blue petals.

The Jacaranda tree (Jacaranda mimosifolia) is not native to Australia, but like all good things from not-so-distant places — Phar Lap, the Finn Brothers and Russell Crowe immediately spring to mind — we’ve claimed them as our own. The trees are actually of South American origin, and the word “Jacaranda” was first described to the English speaking world in the first edition of A supplement to Mr. Chambers’s Cyclopædia way back in 1753, more than thirty years before The First Fleet even arrived at Farm Cove. But claim them we have, and their spectacular blossoming in late October or early November each year heralds the coming of our splendid sub-tropical summer and, for many Sydneysiders, often triggers other memories as well.

The famous Sydney Uni Jacaranda (1927-)...it holds a special place in my heart, and that of many other alumni.

The famous Sydney Uni Jacaranda (1927- )…it holds a special place in my heart, and that of many other alumni.

One of the most famous Jacarandas in Sydney stands in the Quadrangle of Sydney University, my alma mater and my father’s as well. The tree was planted in 1927 by E G Waterhouse, a professor of comparative literature who also popularised the growing of camellias in many Sydney gardens. University folklore has it that if you haven’t started studying for your exams before the Jacaranda blooms in the corner of that incredible Gothic quad, then you’re doomed to fail.

My memories of the Sydney Uni Jacaranda are overwhelmingly positive: the cloisters beneath the tree were a beautiful place to sit and read, to soak up the atmosphere, or to feel the palpable sense of history that pervades those elegant sandstone buildings. There were days when we would sprawl beneath the blossoms before lectures, unperturbed by the “Keep Off The Grass” signs, secure in the belief that they couldn’t possibly apply to us. And if we were asked to move — well, it was probably time to get to tutorial anyway.

Jacarandas in Grafton, Northern NSW

Jacarandas, Grafton NSW

My other Jacaranda memories are much older.  As a child, a giant Jacaranda tree grew outside my second-storey bedroom, and every November the blossom-laden branches outside my window transformed my room into a lilac bower. It was easy to believe in flower fairies looking out into that spreading canopy of mauve and blue. I was utterly heartbroken when the tree grew into the sewer line and had to be removed. They are, after all, spectacularly beautiful trees.

Nowadays, I get my Jacaranda fix wherever I can: there’s a gorgeous one at Marvel Girl’s school, and you see plenty just driving around the neighbourhood. I wish I could plant one in our own yard, but our narrow Northern Beaches block doesn’t have the space for such a specimen. And besides, I still have those special trees — those of my childhood memories and my student days — and they will stay with me forever.

Saltwater People

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I Will Never Turn My Back on the Ocean...

The Surfers’ Code: I Will Never Turn My Back on the Ocean.

One of my life’s greatest joys is living close to the ocean.  Smelling the briny air each morning, feeling the salt on my skin after a swim, hearing the waves crashing onto the shore while I’m drifting off to sleep at night — these are all things that I love. Things I would have trouble giving up, or even trading for something else.

I don’t need to be in the sea, I just need to be near it. To see it, at the very least, every day. I love being able to bear witness to the ocean’s varying colours and moods, and I find security in the knowledge that the stormy grey chaos I see one day could very well be sun-tipped sapphire saltwater the next. Like life itself, the ocean is ever-changing.

When I see the ocean, I see power. I see a potent, expansive presence. We may speak of the good green earth on which we live, but it is no accident that anyone who has seen our world from space refers to it as the Blue Planet: more than seventy percent of the Earth’s surface is covered by sea.

The ocean is a force to be reckoned with.  It is teeming with life, but is just as capable of taking life away. It gives and it takes, it ebbs and it flows. The ocean has hidden depths, far beyond our reach. There are mysteries beneath the waves that we may never see. The ocean, with all its power and its wonder, has my utmost respect.

The Bloke's rule of thumb...it's a good one, and he's sticking to it.

The Bloke’s rule of thumb…it’s a good one, and he’s sticking to it.

The Bloke has a different relationship with the sea to me: he needs to immerse himself in it. He rejoices in it, revels in it. My husband is happiest when he is swimming, surfing, snorkeling, or Scuba diving. Being in the water is his downtime, his exercise, his release — even his hangover cure. Given half the chance, I suspect he would live underwater if he could. Yet while we may connect to the sea in different ways, we both have a love of the ocean that is as strong as it is lifelong. And when we’re no longer here to see and ride the waves, our Wills specify exactly which part of the sea our ashes should be scattered over, so the ocean can claim us one last time.

Jacques Yves Cousteau once said that “the sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever”. Our children have already been well and truly captured by the ocean, though perhaps, with the parents they have, they didn’t have much choice but to become saltwater people too. And while they may not yet know exactly what they need from the sea — to be in it, to be near it, to see it, or something else entirely — we are all loving the experience of allowing them to explore the ocean, inside and out. I don’t just mean they are learning to swim in the sea or in an oceanside rockpool, different as those experiences are from swimming in a backyard pool, they are also learning to negotiate waves, to understand tides, to recognise rips, to go with the flow.

Shaun Thompson...surfer, father, environmentalist, actor, author, businessman, legend.

Shaun Tomson…surfer, father, environmentalist, actor, author, businessman, legend.

And as they learn more about the ocean, our kids are also beginning to appreciate the Surfers’ Code — or my preferred version of it, which was set down by Shaun Tomson, the former world champion surfer who was an integral part of the Free Ride Generation, and a person I greatly admire. The tenets of the Surfers’ Code are as much lessons for life as they are for living with the sea, and the first of them is as simple as it is powerful: I will never turn my back on the ocean.

It was gratifying to hear one of the kids call, “Never turn your back on the ocean!” to her sister the other day, just in time to stop her getting wiped out by a wave. It might have only been shorebreak, but knowing that the principle had been absorbed brought a smile to my face. One day, hopefully, they will take this and the other precepts set down by Tomson and apply them to their lives as much as they do to being in the surf: I will take the drop with commitment…I will watch out for other surfers…I will paddle back out…There will always be another wave…

After all, as Anne Morrow Lindberg wrote,”The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach – waiting for a gift from the sea”.

Then again, for some of us, the sea itself is a gift.

Lux Veris

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Spring 2015 021

Morning on the Corso…this is Spring in Sydney

I love the light at this time of year, when bleached skies and metallic seas signal the onset of Summer. There is something uniquely Australian about the quality of that light: an intrinsic brightness with a shine and sheen that we recognise — instantly — as being the light of our homeland.

Pilots call it ‘severe clear’, a term used to describe conditions of unlimited visibility, but it’s a remarkably accurate expression. There is nothing subtle about the light in the Antipodes: here the sun blazes, the heat blinds.

In Sydney we appear to have skipped straight past Spring, with the temperatures in recent days soaring into the thirties. Around here, the beaches have been packed and the Manly Jazz Festival has been in full swing. It’s great weather for jazz, and for Jamiroquai too. While Winter might make us head for the mellow tunes of Milky Chance, Spring and Summer have us cranking up the car stereo, and reaching for Robin Schulz and Ministry of Sound Annuals. At this time of year my rear view mirror often provides glimpses of Marvel Girl busting out her best dance moves (quite a range, considering the confines of her car seat) while Miss Malaprop sings along — in her own words, as usual — thinking she can rap just as well as Nicki Minaj (she so can’t).

It’s been fantastic weather for footy, too, with last Sunday going down in the history books as a golden day in Australian sport: first the Wallabies won at Twickenham and sent the hapless Poms packing out of the Rugby World Cup, and then the North Queensland Cowboys took home their first NRL premiership in spectacular fashion with Johnathan Thurston kicking them to victory over the Brisbane Broncos with a field goal in extra time. It was a Grand Final for the ages, and one I won’t forget.

But then again, the October Long Weekend always has a touch of enchantment about it, because every year at 2:00am on the first Sunday of October, a magical thing occurs: Daylight Saving Time begins. Well, that is to say, it begins here in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, the Australian Capital Territory and Tasmania — for some obscure reason (still unknown to the rest of the states and territories along the Eastern Seaboard) Queensland doesn’t participate. To be fair, they always have done things a bit differently up there…though not even I am game to mention the Bjelke-Petersen years…

Still, for the rest of us, the beginning of Daylight Saving Time means longer days and lingering twilight. It means trips to the beach after school, it means barbecues and a few quiet beers at dusk. And for a lot of Australian kids, it means going to bed when it’s still light.

Strangely enough, some of my most vivid childhood memories are of lying beneath my window in my bed as the golden light of day slowly faded into the deep tropical green of evening. I can still hear the last raucous squawks of roosting lorrikeets, and the rhythmic thunk of the filter in the neighbours’ pool after someone popped in for one last swim. I can still see the inky silhouettes of trees on the horizon, and the first twinklings of the stars high above. Only when I had seen the Southern Cross wheel its way above my head would I close my eyes and sleep, secure in the knowledge that I was truly home.

Ahhh…that light, again. Severe clear by day, warm and inviting by night. And while Dorothea Mackellar may be justly famous for summing up what Australia is like in “My Country”, I think — oddly enough — that it was Wordsworth who understood just what I experienced as a child, even if he felt it a few miles above Tintern Abbey instead of in Sydney:

My local rockpool...photo credit Yury Prokopenko

My local rockpool…photo credit Yury Prokopenko

         …And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.


			

	

				
					



	


		
		
Dear Aylan


				

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Dear Aylan,


You don’t know me, and now you never will, but there are things that I want to say to you even though you’ll never hear them.


The first thing I want to say is that I’m sorry. When I saw the picture of you, washed up on a stretch of Turkish beach, I wept — and the world wept with me. I am sorry that we failed you, that you did not find the refuge you so desperately needed.


I can only imagine what your life was like. In your three short years I wonder whether you ever knew the sort of peaceful coexistence my children enjoy every day, living in a society that has never experienced the harsh and harrowing realities of modern warfare on our home soil. I do know that you had a brother, Galib, and parents who loved you both so much that they made the inordinately difficult decision to leave their homeland and search for a better life. A life without bombing. Without war. Without privation. Without the incessant presence of danger — real, actual, life-threatening danger.


Aylan, I wish you had made it to safety. I wish that it did not take seeing the photograph of your lifeless body to galvanise support around the world for the thousands of human beings who are fleeing five years of relentless, ruthless warfare and are seeking a safe haven. Somewhere. Anywhere.


But I am grateful that even though you didn’t get to see it, people around the world have stood up for you. They wiped away their tears and showed each other what humanity is, nowhere more so than in Germany where, as Geoffrey Robertson so eloquently put it, “the grandchildren of the Gestapo became the angels of mercy”. And the world wept again, but this time they were tears of hope.


These people showed the world what leadership looks like, Aylan. It looks like the people who greeted the displaced thousands flooding into their country with applause, with toys and sweets, with open arms. It looks like the people who waited on roadsides handing out care packages of much needed food and water. It looks like the people who drove their cars across the Hungarian border to pick up the asylum seekers who were still walking to safety. It looks like Angela Merkel.


I am sorry — no, I am ashamed — that such leadership has been sorely lacking at the highest levels of government in my own country, and that our prime minister — in whose electorate I reside — seems to have lost himself in a mire of bureaucratic bullshit, crapping on about quotas and proportions, and crowing about stopping the boats.


A humanitarian crisis should never be turned into a political issue, but in Australia, our prime minister’s lack of compassion and basic concern for his fellow human beings is doing that faster than any parliamentary debate ever could.  It seems that he has not only forgotten Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that “everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution“, but that he has also failed to recall Article 1:




All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.




Aylan, even though you will never speak again, I promise that I will keep speaking up for you and for the thousands of people seeking refuge, just as you did. I will stand up and say, over and over again, that refugees should be made welcome in this country. I will honour that spirit of brotherhood, of humanity.


I will remember you, Aylan.


May you rest in peace.


 Refugees welcome

			

	

				
					



	


		
		
The Wellspring


				

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My First Principles: words, music, food.
Know your First Principles…


This month marks the first anniversary of the day I sat down, summoned my courage and started blogging. From the outset, I have said that this is where I come to make sense of it all, and after twelve months of showing up on the page I firmly believe that doing so has benefited me, and probably my family, too.


I believe it’s important to thank all the people who have joined me since I set sail on this voyage, and to make special mention of the mums who sought me in the school playground to chat about everything from Holiday Bonus Points to the meaning of saudade, or to jokingly re-introduce themselves after I blogged about The Name Game. I want to thank the friends who provided early encouragement (and who, to my eternal gratitude and partial disbelief, continue to do so), as well as the hundreds of complete strangers who stumbled across my little site and stayed to read a post or two. Discovering that my words have been read by people all over the world, from Argentina to Germany, Turkey to Taiwan, as well as here in Australia has been an astonishing and humbling experience.


Find your wellspring...
Find your wellspring…


I believe there is a wellspring in each of us, the source of our creativity and our connection with humanity and the planet we are so lucky to live on.  Writing this blog has enabled me to dive into that wellspring and to clarify what is important to me, what I am passionate about, and also what I am challenged by. It has provided me with a platform to speak my truth, whether I was struggling to make sense of the Sydney Siege, or speaking out against the death penalty, or fangirling over my two favourite Toms (Wlaschiha and Hiddleston), or reveling in the beauty of street art.  And writing about all these things has enabled me to connect with people in ways I never have before.


I believe that I am truer to my First Principles – my Holy Trinity of words, music and food – when I visit my wellspring regularly.   When I align myself to these three things, my most important sources of nourishment, I live a better and far more authentic life. I may not always progress smoothly; life simply isn’t like that. But honouring the things that make me who I am and finding the time and space to share them with others certainly makes it easier to deal with the inevitable ups and downs that characterise every person’s existence.  Blogging reminds me that we are all riding this rollercoaster together, and that it can be terrifying and thrilling and every other kind of emotion I can name (and probably a few I don’t know yet know precisely the right word for) along the way.  It also prompts me to remember that the same is true for each of us, the world over.


Connect...
Connect to your own greatness…


I believe I am blessed in my life to be supported by my family, the crazy trio you may laughed with – or perhaps just laughed at – and cried with over the past year.  You’ve shared our adventures and misadventures, and witnessed some of the tests and trials my husband and I have encountered while parenting two strong-willed and independently-minded girls. The Bloke, Marvel Girl and Miss Malaprop all inspire me, challenge me, delight me, frustrate me, and fill me with more joy than I ever thought possible. They also willingly put up with a wife and mother who is happiest when tapping away at the keyboard, and who considers herself incredibly fortunate to be able to do so on a personal and a professional basis – even if it means my life is regulated by the alarms I set to remind me to pick the kids up from school.


I believe, looking back, that it probably wasn’t a coincidence that I began blogging in spring, the season of rebirth and renewal.  Spring is a great time to start new things, and to watch them grow. One of the themes I have returned to again and again over the past twelve months has been seasonal change, as I’ve connected with the world as it transforms itself around me and noticed details I may not have otherwise. In the process, I have become far more aware of how I respond to the seasons and the unique ways they express themselves in this Great Southern Land. (As a side note, I would also argue that spring is probably a much better time to set resolutions than those first remorse-filled weeks of January when we lament our Christmas and New Year’s excesses and wish for the umpteenth year in a row that the festive season and the bikini season did not coincide.)


But having said that, I also believe that it doesn’t matter when you start something new: the important thing is to begin. To have a go. Or to have another go. Or even to resume doing something you love, because you know it serves you and brings you closer to who you truly are. For me, it’s writing, reading, listening to and playing music, cooking well and eating better.  It’s also exercising: running, weight training, and practicing yoga.


...and Begin.
…and Begin.


Last weekend, I was fortunate enough to attend a yoga workshop welcoming the coming of spring.  It was a chance to find stillness within, to connect with my breath, to meditate on new beginnings and to draw strength and inspiration from the wellspring within.  Emerging into the twilight two hours later, I was greeted by the sight of the moon, luminous and full, lighting up the evening sky.  Seeing that shining orb reminded me that I, too, have come full circle, and I remembered what I wrote in my very first blog post: that what I write here may never be great, or even particularly good, but it will be mine. The most important thing was that I began.


So rise up.  Follow your breath.  Find the wellspring within.  Connect.  And begin.