I know this will come to no surprise, but I think we live life wrong.
As kids the world is full of endless possibility and the smallest new thing is exciting. Even hearing that ice cream van in the distance would fill you with joy. Maybe it would come to your street? Maybe, for once, your mum would let you get an ice cream? (We were rarely allowed one because they were too expensive and without fail, I'd get so excited and run and ask Mum for money, ever hopeful. If itwas a no, I'd watch the an from the window until it drove out of view and the music grew faint, thinking 'Next time...'). Then we get older and have to decide what we do, like a singular enterprise is the goal - not be open to adventure, settle down in a job with responsibilites. Then act our age...oh, is there ever worse life advice?
It's
no secret I struggle with age. Not being old (except the physical decline) but that it gets harder to find people to have fun with. The gulf in our ideas of fun gets bigger and wider. I don't need to fit in, but I still want to do the thing. A friend recently changed venues because "It's more our kind of thing" and I thought "Is it?" I was disappointed we were no longer going to the buzzy bar, but I also wondered what we were that made the other place more suitable?
I got tired of missing out so now I just do the thing by myself if no one else will come. At first I was quite self conscious but now I have it down to an art. I have noticed though, through the Wednesday Club, that I am getting a few more partners in crime for these whimsical escapades, so I know I'm not alone....
I've always been a fan of Alice, since as long as I can remember, so any chance to run down the rabbit hole I'm quick to jump on. I also love magicians. I love that rush as you watch the impossible happen.
In lockdown, I started to see some magic out in the streets on my walks - it was strange what I tapped into. I seem to have lost the ability again a little, though
Rone tapped into it a little. While already on a high at Palm tree festival, I got a giddy rush of delight when Tiesto played White Lotus - it was so unexpected and I squealed involunarily when I recognised what it was. These are the moments to treasure in life. These fleeting feelings that rip through you, busting joyously from somewhere within and take over your whole body - exploding in a smile that shines in your eyes and huurts your cheeks, that rushes though your chest and pumps your heart a little faster and at times extends to a clap because your hands join in before your brain has time to tell them not to make a noise.
Funnily enough, in lockdown Dispatches from Elsewhere really set that ablaze in me, a need to seek out the whimsy woven into every day life. As did my excitement and joy exploring the Prism. It was igniting something in my headspace, when nothing else was changing externally. It opened up a broad horizon while the real world I lived in got smaller. The Elves in the Eurovision movie, the delight of finding a Mows in the wild or a Boy under the Bridge in an alley. As we get more back to 'normal', I don't want to lose it.
It's one of the best parts of being alive and it's usually free. It's an internal thing, it comes from you, from how you view the world. It's you insisting on seeing the magic, however small, and discovering that can infiltrate your life.
“You must not ever stop being whimsical. And you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility for your life.”
― Mary Oliver
(No surprises I dragged everyone here to get a coffee from the bear in the wall in Harajuku)
I went to the ballet. This is a big stretch for me. I've been once before. I went to the Three Musketeers, because I love the book. I have no ability to judge or process it. They looked good, but who knows whether they were? I kept waiting for them to talk, which was funny.
This time it was Don Quixote. I adore that book (Edith Grossman translation for anyone that wants to read it - it's brilliant, very Monty Python). So when a friend suggested it, I accepted. I got dressed up and as I moved through the casual comedy crowd in the other theatre, I felt I was in the wrong crowd - I was not where I belonged. I began to wonder if I'd made a huge mistake....
It was the closing night and the alumni was invited as it's the 60th birthday of the Australian Ballet. They stood up and we all applauded and I felt I was visiting a subcluture to which I wasn't part of. A stranger visiting a strange land.
The ballet itself was a reinactment of the 1973 Rudolph Nureyev film that threw international attention on the fledgling Australian Ballet Company. It was magnificent. Great direction with film morphing into real life on stage. Funny and colourful, a gorgeous spectacular. Instead of being bored as anticipated, I was laughing and clapping along with everyone else. It was delightful. I still felt like an out of place child in a room full of sophisticated grown ups, but I didn't mind. The ignorant amongst the educated, but I still enjoyed it on my more basic level.
