Tag Archives: winter

The Curse of Inigo Montoya

Posted on by • Posted in Blue Jai Creative, movies, Uncategorized, Writing • Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , • Leave a comment

I was driving my elder daughter to school this morning when Marvel Girl made the unexpected announcement that she had watched The Princess Bride again last night. As someone who has watched that film approximately eleventy-six times, I was filled with a warmish sense of maternal pride. I say warm-ish because it was precisely eleven degrees and blustery outside (and that, as any self-respecting Sydneysider knows, is what we proclaim around here to be cold — along with any other celsius temperature reading that fails to begin with the number 2 and is followed by another digit).

I am still unsure what prompted Marvel Girl to take another look at one of the favourite films of my childhood, and as a result have been afflicted ever since I dropped her off by what I am now grandiosely (and ever so slightly theatrically) referring to as the Curse of Inigo Montoya.

Although Inigo’s more famous and oft-quoted line in The Princess Bride features him introducing himself and then advising his foe that they should prepare to die (in what some have described as a masterclass in effective networking), I believe another of his classic statements is entirely more relatable and have thus co-opted it to form the basis of said Curse.

Even if you’ve only seen the movie once, you know the line:

I hate waiting.

See? TOTALLY RELATABLE. I defy you to present me with a single person on the planet who actually enjoys waiting. Even though waiting is something we all have to do — it could even be said to be a defining feature of the human condition — I genuinely believe the person who finds waiting pleasurable is about as rare as say…oh, I dunno, someone with six fingers on their right hand?

Waiting SUCKS.

Anyone who has held on for any kind of meaningful response (and I include this category everything from academic scores, job applications, marriage proposals and — probably worst of all — medical test results) knows how agonisingly dreadful waiting is. Samuel Beckett clearly knew all about it: Waiting for Godot goes exactly nowhere yet somehow keeps audiences riveted to their seats.

The slippery, torturous and endlessly annoying thing about waiting, you see, is that the tantalising promise of some kind of result or outcome forces us to endure the unbearable space between.

I wrote a while back about the liminal places in our lives when I was in the process of finishing my novel. But now, now that I have shepherded my words onto the page and guided them into the hands of a prospective publisher, I am back in that space between again. This is not nearly as simple as waiting for Marvel Girl to get home to ask her why she watched The Princess Bride again (and to apologise for forgetting to ask her how her English exam went yesterday — yet another maternal fail). The stakes feel so much higher and, depending on the day, they are tangled up with words like worthiness and success and the unthinkable opposites of those.

This, my friends, is the Curse of Inigo Montoya.

And yet, The Princess Bride gives me hope.

Inigo Montoya, though cursed to wait, never gives up. Buttercup never stops loving Westley. Miracle Max somehow finds a way to pull off a marvellous death-defying feat. The baddies (even the Rodents Of Unusual Size) get beaten, the goodies rescue the princess, true love prevails, and the world now knows the true meaning of the phrase, “As you wish”.

It’s all quite heartening, really.

Waiting is giving me the opportunity to tinker here, in my little patch of cyberspace, for the first time in months. It’s allowing me to read books occupying the same genre I write (which I tend to avoid when creating to avoid becoming at all derivative), to listen to podcasts I wouldn’t normally have time to (which led this morning to me snort laughing when I heard the enormously intelligent and wickedly funny Marina Hyde describing the long-feuding Cyrus family as “Tennessee Lannisters”), to plan extensively detailed holiday itineraries, to cook things I haven’t made for ages or haven’t ever made — the list goes on and on and on — and all because waiting, much as I find it utterly and completely maddening, waiting gives me the space and time to do all these things.

Turns out the Curse of Inigo Montoya may be a blessing in disguise.

And so, my friends, whatever you find yourself waiting for, may you find Inigo’s Blessing rather than his Curse.

Mind yourselves,

BJx

The THREAD: August 2023

Posted on by • Posted in Blue Jai Creative, Uncategorized, Writing • Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , • Leave a comment

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”.

Mind yourselves,

BJx

The THREAD: June 2023

Posted on by • Posted in Blue Jai Creative, music, Musings, Uncategorized, Writing • Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , • 1 Comment

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.

I’m officially exhausted.

Mind yourselves,

BJx

The THREAD: May 2023

Posted on by • Posted in Blue Jai Creative, Books, creativity, dance, exercise, First World Problems, Marriage, movies, Musings, Parenting, Uncategorized • Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , • Leave a comment

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

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

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

THINK | HEAR | READ | EAT | ADMIRE | DO

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mind yourselves, too!

BJx

The Thrifty Fictionista in Lockdown (again)

Posted on by • Posted in Blue Jai Creative, First World Problems, Musings, Uncategorized, Writing • Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , • 2 Comments
How I imagine I look…

Lockdown Day 1, and the Thrifty Fictionista has once again taken to her bed.

Not because I’m sick, not because I’m occasionally inclined towards melodrama, but because it’s vaguely cold out — meaning it’s fine and sunny and not the slightest bit windy, but the temperature has dipped below 20 degrees Celcius, which is regarded quite decidedly as ugg boot weather in my part of the Antipodes. We’re not wimps, really we’re not…

Besides, now that Greater Sydney has been placed into Lockdown (again) there is literally no chance anyone is going to come knocking on our door, so there’s nothing to stop me from typing away on my trusty laptop under the cover of my delightfully warm doona. The Bloke and the kids are down the other end of the house, and given we are going to be trapped together for the next thirteen days none of them is feeling the need to interrupt me (yet). I even have a hot cup of peppermint tea on my bedside table, though that did require me to give one of my two TBR piles a bit of a shove so it would fit. TBR, for the uninitiated, stands for “To Be Read”, which is both a sacred and dreadful practice of stacking large quantities of books you plan to read on your bedside table, the precipitous nature of which may or may not impede your spouse’s ability to successfully procure clothing from their side of the wardrobe.

Lockdown level annoyed…

At the top of the nearer TBR pile is a biography of Rudolf Nureyev I dived into after writing my last post, the reading of which I have been interspersing with bellyflops into romance novels of dubious quality (not usually a genre I pay the slightest bit of attention to, but every now and then my brain craves a book that is the mental equivalent of chewing gum).

In my defence, my brain probably does deserve a bit of a break. A large chunk of my morning (in between moaning about being in Lockdown again) was spent rescheduling the holiday we had planned to take next week, cancelling the cat sitter, and working out how to make my elder daughter’s 13th birthday next week feel less like she’s spending in Long Bay Jail?

I only meant to read one…

Apologies — am just back from a spot of online shopping; I had to throw out my favourite pair of blue jeans the other day due to the development of a hole in an unmentionable place, and since I can’t go to the Mall or anywhere else for the next two weeks, needs must. I suspect this digression may also enlighten you, dear reader, to the state of my mind at the moment and why I am resorting to reading trashy romances. It’s like a tin of worms in there, folks. Or maybe a bag of fleas?

Anyhooooo….the Thrifty Fictionista, currently warm and toasty but evidently sporting the attention span of a gnat, has now finally recalled the real reason she began tapping away at her keyboard on this fine, sunny, slightly cold but doona-covered afternoon: if you’re boxed in, the best solution is a box set.

YASS QUEEN! It worked for me last time we were in Lockdown (or was it the time before that?), when I cracked through an enormous box set of Sarah J Maas fantasy novels, tomes weighty enough to anchor the QE2 in Sydney Harbour…were it not for the fact that we have closed our international borders indefinitely and the mere sighting of a cruise ship off the coast is likely to send most Sydneysiders into a panic faster than you can say “Ruby Princess”…

Quality lockdown reading…

This time the box set I have chosen is Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy. I suspect I’ve already read the first two (the ones that both won the Booker Prize) a long time ago, and the third one — well, it’s as gigantic as the others, and I am looking forward to reading all three. At its best, historical fiction is immersive, and what better time than Lockdown to lose yourself in another time and (hopefully not plague-ridden) place?

And we’re not really all expected to clean our houses from top to bottom all over again are we?

No, seriously — are we?

Midwinter Delights

Posted on by • Posted in Blue Jai Creative, Musings, Uncategorized, Writing • Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , • 2 Comments

Weatherwise, it’s a miserable day here in Sydneytown. Southerly squalls started gusting before dawn, and when the rain hasn’t been slamming us sideways, the sun has straggled out to show ragged strips of grey cloud racing their way north.

After hearing the mere mention of the words “East Coast Low”, I am glad that I officially proclaimed today “Trackie Dack Tuesday” — we have dressed accordingly and hunkered down indoors for the day, listening to Sigur Rós, playing Scrabble, baking cookies and cutting out sewing patterns. We are all a little sad plans for netball training this evening have been ditched, but at least the cancellation means we don’t have to change out of our aforementioned (super daggy) attire. Besides, being at home for the day has given me the opportunity to reflect on what has been happening lately and pinpoint the moments of delight that have captured me since winter began.

Without further ado, here are four highlights from our winter (such as it usually is) so far:

Apricity

winter 1Ahh…what a wonderful word: precise, perfect, and something I cherish. Apricity means “the warmth of the sun in winter”, and I am particularly fond of seeking it out — especially on days when the blue sky stretches high but the temperature drops deceptively low. Recently I have been struck by my appreciation of apricity when chatting with my elderly neighbour over the back fence, shooting goals with my family down at the local neball courts, and curling up with a good book on the lounge beside my beloved cat. Apricity is a true winter delight (and one most felines can point you in the direction of, if you care to follow their lead…which in my view constitutes another reason to join the Cat Race). Besides, in winter a decent dose of Vitamin D is good for you.

Phosphorescence by Julia Baird

winter 2The good book I was curled up in the sun with? Well, when I wasn’t on a fiction bender reading all eight of Sarah J Maas’ Throne of Glass books (because it’s school holidays and who actually needs an excuse to escape into a book anyway), I was completely and utterly caught up in Julia Baird’s latest offering.  It’s full title is Phosphorescence: On awe, wonder and the things that sustain you when the world goes dark, and it is absolutely worth getting your hands on a copy — not just because the cover is truly a thing of beauty. While I was reading it, this book made me think deeply about Baird’s many and varied insights, and after finishing it several weeks ago I am still pondering her observations, recalling certain turns of phrase, and picking up the book to delve into certain sections again.

Winter 3Chocolate Croissants

Is there anything more satisfying than biting into a freshly made chocolate croissant? Particularly when in it is a perfect ensemble of crisp, flaky, buttery pastry and decadently high quality dark chocolate? Do I even need to begin justifying including this as a delight? I think not…and I am abundantly grateful to have a magical patisserie not far from home where these masterpieces are made every single day. Nom.

Hamilton

What a wonderful coincidence, that Disney Plus released the film version of Hamilton the very same evening the NSW winter school holidays began! For me, the fact that this already marvellous confluence of events also happened to line up with Marvel Girl receiving news that she had been accepted into the high school she was aiming for made it all the more magical. Marvel Girl and I are big Hamilton fans and even bigger devotees of the insanely talented Lin-Manuel Miranda, so settling in to watch this massively ambitious piece of musical theatre was an absolute, unmitigated delight. We relished and rejoiced in every rhyme, and since then even Miss Malaprop has been known to sing out a line or two…especially if it allows her render a completely lifelike Jonathan Groff impression to send a fully armed battalion to remind [us] of [her] love!

There’s no better way to end this post than that.

winter 5

 

 

Waking Late and Winter Walks

Posted on by • Posted in creativity, music, Musings, Parenting, Sea, Solitude, Uncategorized, Writing • Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , • 2 Comments

two

We shall not cease from exploration…

We’ve had the best time.

Nothing makes me happier than hearing my children say these words — particularly when we’ve just spent the school holidays, in their entirety, at home.

I mean, we have left the house every now and then, because good old Sydneytown has turned on a run of truly spectacular winter days. It’s wonderfully warm in the sun, and even though it’s been windy the skies have been mostly clear of clouds. Staring skyward has been like looking up at a shimmering swathe of pale blue silk, stretching high into the heavens.

But the best bit has been the freedom. 

For me, there is nothing more liberating than turning off all the alarms on my phone, knowing that we are — blissfully — not bound by routine for two whole weeks.

Being winter, we have slept in, relishing being able to get up with the sun at seven rather than scurrying out of bed in the dark.  Even better, there have been days when we have stayed snug beneath our bedcovers, reading books or revelling in the very real pleasure of not having to be anywhere at a specific time.

We have enjoyed other simple things, too. We have walked in the winter sun, sometimes with a destination in mind and other times just because we can. We have watched Captain Marvel and endless episodes of The Adventures of Merlin, reminding ourselves that magic should be part of everyday life. We have planted flowers to brighten the back yard. We have played board games and card games while sipping hot chocolate and even hotter coffee. We have baked more muffins than it’s sensible for humans to consume.

From time to time I have marvelled at my children’s creativity, partciularly when they took it upon themselves to transform a large cardboard box into a Viking longboat in the back yard. I have smiled to myself in wry amusement when they protested having to scrub paint out of their pants when their artistic endeavours haven’t gone entirely to plan. I have admired their generosity when they have gone through old books and clothes and toys and worked out what they wanted to pass on to other kids.

And in the evenings, when the winter darkness falls so fast, we have heated our home by making stews and coming up with new spice blends to season homemade chicken nuggets, all while listening to Miles Davis and other jazz greats, or The Bad Plus working their own kind of wonder with instrumental versions of long-beloved songs like No Woman, No Cry. I’ve probably drunk more wine than I meant to, stirring pots on the stovetop and peeling sweet potatoes and parsnips to bake, not because the kids are driving me crazy, but because I am relaxed and happy — and because these are my holidays, too.

We’ve had the best time.

And I have, too.

beach

…and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.

 

 

Stairways & Stepping Stones

Posted on by • Posted in Blue Jai Creative, Uncategorized, Writing • Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , • 2 Comments

Steps 4It’s winter where I live.

The shortest day has already slipped past, sinking silently into the darkness. Even the stars look cold and distant, silver points of light piercing the fast-falling night sky.

I’ve written about winter before, probably because I am fascinated by the passing of the seasons — such as they are in this Great Southern Land. I’ve also written about winter being a time for self-care, though this year I’m looking at it from a different persective — through the prism of Blue Jai’s Word of the Month for June: ALIGNMENT.

Steps 2The word alignment comes from the French words à ligne, which translate as ‘into line’. For me, it instantly conjures up images of perfectly spaced poplar trees, of soldiers standing to attention, of lane ropes skimming the surface of a swimming pool.

But then, immediately afterwards, it occurred to me that lines are not always straight — and that the words ‘into line’ do not imply that those lines are horizontal, vertical, or parallel. Alignment, then, does not have to be something ruled or rigid.

Steps 1I then thought about lines in nature — of the fiddleheads of ferns and the inside of seashells and other swirling curves that fit the Fibonacci sequence. I thought of nights I spent in the Northern hemisphere, watching the sinuous lines of the Aurora Borealis. I thought of human spines, of all our vertibrae arranged in concave and convex curvatures.

And then I thought of stairways and stepping stones, and saw these as a simple yet effective metaphor for making sure we keep putting one foot in front of the other to get to where we want to go. Doing so depends on preparing for each step, keeping our balance, and moving forward.

We are best equipped to take those steps — and sometimes even leaps — when we live and work in alignment with our goals and our First Principles. When we do this, unforeseen obstacles become easier to deal with: instead of seeing them as insurmountable, we simply make the necessary adjustments to bring ourselves back into alignment with our path once more.

So this June, and all this winter, I wish you well on your journey — one step at a time, onwards and upwards, in alignment with your path, however straight or curved it may be.

Steps 3

Bittersweet Symphony

Posted on by • Posted in Books, First Principles, Marriage, music, Uncategorized • Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , • 1 Comment

BSS

Still one of the greatest songs ever written…

Winter arrived this week.

We woke one morning — I think it was Thursday — and discovered that Sydney’s seemingly endless summer had disappeared overnight. The world was suddenly a cold and windy place, rain-soaked and grey-stained, where clouds had settled themselves just above the rooftops.

‘Cause it’s a bittersweet symphony, this life…

The change of season often happens suddenly here, though perhaps I have been more aware of it this year because I managed to come down with the dreaded lurgy about ten days ago, when the days were still sunsoaked, and tried (unsuccessfully, as it turns out) to keep working and to soldier on. The day winter arrived was the morning I awoke with the dawning realisation that the wretched thing has grabbed me in its claws again — this time, by the throat.

…try to make ends meet, you’re a slave to money then you die…

Well, maybe not die. Not quite.

BSS 2

Well, maybe not a million — but, like I said, being ill makes me slightly prone to exaggeration.

I will admit, albeit reluctantly, that illness does tend to make me slightly prone to exaggeration. I suspect that the main reason for this is that I, like many mothers, feel as though my family requires a great deal of convincing that when I say I feel unwell, I actually mean it. For example, one night last week, when I had finally stopped coughing long enough to fall asleep in the spare room (to which I had banished myself so as not to inflict the lurgy on The Bloke), I was woken at 2am by the light of a torch being shone directly into my eyes by my younger child, who proceeded to announce that she had a sore ankle.

Seriously?! 

Like the creator of aforementioned the dreaded lurgy, Spike Milligan, I sometimes wonder whether my headstone will end up reading I told you I was sick.

Since the cold snap hit, however, I have stopped trying to convert the non-believers in my house and have simply, and quite uncharacteristically, given into being ill. I have wrapped myself in blankets, drunk endless cups of hot tea, and surrounded myself with fresh lemons, a rather alarming variety of pharmaceuticals, a welcome selection of books, and The Verve’s Urban Hymns album.

The Bloke despairs of my love for what he refers to as “whingey Britpop”, but since I am as steadfast as I am eclectic in my musical affections, there are certain things in the life we share that he is forced to roll his eyes and endure. It’s not just that he doesn’t like what he refers to as “that awful music”. The bigger problem, I suspect, is that I have — as some wag once put it — three moods: skip every song on my iPod, let the music play without interruption, or play the same song on repeat for days.

In my defence, I tend to put entire albums on repeat instead of single songs: last week, for example, it was twentyone pilot’s Blurryface — because let’s face it, you need a little dubstep when you’re struggling to put one foot in front of the other. And this week, it was Urban Hymns, which is still think is one of the finest albums ever recorded (even if its moody atmospherics drive my dear and long-suffering husband demented).

…I let the melody shine, let it cleanse my mind, I feel free now…

BSS 3

It’s amazing how other people respond when you start looking after yourself…

But here’s the thing, the (in my view) really weird thing: regardless of what I’ve been playing on the stereo, since I started treating myself like a person who wasn’t in the best of health, my family started behaving the same way.

To my utter disbelief, Marvel Girl and Miss Malaprop bounced out of bed each morning (while I dragged myself, coughing and spluttering, into the shower) and made their own lunches. And packed their snacks. For recess and for fruit break.

Three days in a row.

Who knew they could do that?!

And then this morning, after I had rewarded them for their helpful behaviour by ordering them both a hot lunch from the school canteen, they offered to make me breakfast.

Who are you, I was tempted to ask, and what have you done with my children?

Upon reflection, though, it’s not all that surprising that my kids stepped up when I needed them to. I am forever telling them to ask for what they want, say what they mean, and throw in a please or thank you and they can’t go too far wrong. What I had forgotten, in my desire to impress upon them just how awfully unwell I was feeling, was that I needed to do the same thing. So when I actually started taking care of myself, they started taking care of me too.

Yeah, it’s a bittersweet symphony, this life. And it’s going by faster and faster with every passing year. But today, I heard that symphony in my kids’ asking me if I wanted them to make me some toast, in my GP taking the time to listen to my symptoms sympathetically instead of treating me as yet another flu case, in a wonderful friend’s text offering to drop my girls at school this morning so I could rest.

It’s bittersweet, but it’s beautiful too.

And as well as being grateful, I’m on the mend.

A Winter’s Tale

Posted on by • Posted in Musings, Writing • Tagged , , , , • 1 Comment

Southern CrossThe Winter Solstice has just slipped past down here in the Southlands, and with it the shortest day.  It’s about as cold as it ever gets in Sydneytown, when the sun dips down before dinnertime and the stars swing overhead in the early darkness, pricking tiny silver holes in frosty skies.  The Southern Cross shines brightest in the winter sky.

Winter.

Some say we don’t know much about winter, down here in the Antipodes. It’s not like we need to don down jackets just to pop out to the shops, and any child sporting a pair of earmuffs is probably impersonating Anna from Frozen rather than protecting their extremities from the cold. But having spent two years living in Canada, in a city on a more northerly latitude than Moscow where winter lasted the better part of eight or nine months, I can honestly say I have felt colder in Sydney than I ever did in Edmonton.

Sydney cold seeps.

Sydney stormIt gets into your bones. It is dank and it is damp. It rides in on southerlies, straight off Bass Strait, and settles into every exposed crevice. It saps and it leaches. It is persistent.

Winter weather in Sydney is a petulant child: sunny one moment and sulky the next, or threatening to storm before suddenly showing off, throwing ridiculously perfect rainbows and breathtaking beautiful sunsets skyward as twilight descends. It makes us stamp our feet and rub our hands, yet takes great delight at seeing our breath emerge in great clouds of white when we speak into the chill.

In wintertime, we seize the days of sunny splendour that remind us that summer does return to our city, we grasp them and will them to last.  We retaliate against unexpected rainstorms by buying yet another umbrella when the weather catches us out. Again.

But when the wind blows and the temperature drops, we often retreat.

As Edith Sitwell once said, “Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home.”

In WinterIn winter, we wrap our fingers around warm cups of tea. We roast and we slow cook. We bake. We pull portable heaters out of their hiding places. We wear ugg boots anywhere we think we can get away with it, and even in some places where we can’t. We curl up with books under blankets. We indulge in marathon Netflix sessions. We curse the fact that Season Three of Crossing Lines is still in post-production because we’re running out of episodes of Tom Wlaschiha…er, sorry, of Season Two…

And, somewhere in the midst of all our burrowing under covers, swapping recipes for soup, and muttering the motto of House Stark, there comes a point when Sydneysiders start to smile. It’s a strange and subtle tipping point, that begins with a slight upturning of the corners of the mouth, and usually ends up resembling a smug grin.

Because the secret to surviving a Sydney winter is very simple: all you need do is remember that around here, winter doesn’t last all that long.

And, besides, as Anton Chekov said: “People don’t notice whether it’s winter or summer when they’re happy”.