After such a bumper April, I don't know what I have to talk about in May. Infact I can't beleive it's time to write another one of these already!
Things I've loved and/or dislikedThe Comedy Festival has been filling up my evenings and allowing catch ups with all different friends and date nights with my husband. I've also enjoyed a few return visits to the Biennale at night to see bands. Again catching up with different friends. These free or low costs excursions are also only an hour or two so great for week nights and still home by 9 but had a night out. Making the most of what's on offer...and now it's time for VIVID!! My favourite of all.
Things I've accomplished It took me until the last few days but I submitted my story for the Grief anthology. I'm not 100% sure it's what they are after but I like it, and I am hopeful I make the cut. It felt really good to write again. I'm hoping to write something this weekend while partner is away.
Some things need improvement I have a month to write this post yet every time I scramble about with what to say. I am going to try to do this as a month long effort next month, so when it falls due, I'm prepared.
Things I've noticed Specifically Australian, political but not leaning in either way. During the pandemic, the stress on the economy was in great part said that we needed migrants for our economy to grow and the border lockdown was bad for the economy. However, now both parties are saying they will cut immigration. Yet we are a country that requires quite high migration for the economy to flourish (birthrate doesn't cut it). No one in the media seems to be mentioning this. I am trying to decide if this is like the very fast train and something that gets mentioned every election but never really going to happen, or if both the media and the politicians think people in this country are stupid and don't remember anything that they say from one year to the next?
The photos are a bit more of the Biennale (there's one month left to check out all the sites). And walking around town....
I mentioned in #Allseasons what I did for Mother's Day, the official Mother's day being a celebration of my mum and my mother in law.
Each year I celebrate being a mother on a different day, and doing something fun together. For me it's a celebration of all the fun times we'd have together, usually in school holidays where the kids and I would set off on 'adventures' or try out activities together. I love seeing them 'play' together, even now.
Also, with the youngest still in her teen years, it's a chance for her to have her siblings around and available to her. Rare now that one has moved out and the other adult is busy.
(We saw the images at the Japanese hole in real life so it was fun seeing that again with the kids)
As we'd just been to Hijinx for my birthday, I chose Holy Moley. We went for dinner and cocktails and then a couple of rounds of golf. It was fun and I just loved seeing them all together. It's sadly rare. That's what we really celebrate on Mother's Day, that time when we had them all to ourselves, taken away only by school and hobbies.
I'm now planning a family getaway for a night as a Christmas present. Probably local between Christmas and New Year...just to steal some of that time back.
So that's what was on my calendar this month. Family fun!
“I felt myself still reliving a past which was no longer anything more than the history of another person;” ― Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time
I took this on the Bay Run, however I equally like it upside down.
There is a seasonal thing to talk about! My favourite flowers are back in season. Last week they were fifteen dollars, This week they were ten dollars and hopefully next week they're down to six or seven, which is when I usually buy them but I decided I needed a treat so here they are! It's a short season, about 6 weeks. I am wait for it each year, scouring the florists until they appear!
They are the fragrance of joy!
Do you like jonquils? Or what's your favourite flower?
Linking this old post with #FloralFridayPhoto because I wanted to ask the knowledgable peeps where are the jonquils? They should be appearing by now!?!?
Friends invited me to the races because Furnace and the Fundamentals were playing. Now I don't like horse racing but I'm going because I was having a sulk that somehow I had 3 weeks ahead without any music booked...I do actually have Sam Fisher but he's slow and you can't dance to him so he doesn't count...
I've used this Hunter S. Thompson quote before“Music has always been a matter of Energy to me, a question of Fuel. Sentimental people call it Inspiration, but what they really mean is Fuel. I have always needed Fuel." and it really does hit home for me. The thought of no music lined up really brought me down, and so the ridiculous effort I'm going to even makes me chuckle. I get energised from it, a sort of high if I can get lost in the rhythm and the dancing. All singing in unison does something too. I guess feeling part of a community. It's probably why churches included chanting and then songs?
This song is all about losing yourself in singing and dancing and his fans got celebrated in the clip. There's so much infectious joy in it. (while not sexual , there is a woman in the shower and a lot of bikinis so maybe NSFW)
As a kid, I was really into music until about 12. I loved all music from the turn of the century up until the weekly top 40. I would follow that religiously, taping soungs off the tv musicals or off the radio. I knew (and still do) all the words of every song.
Then in high school it waned a little, but reading the music magazines and pouring over pictures of bands was added to the mix. I guess it became more about who was cool and who was cute?
Strangely, when I could go and see live bands, in my 20s, I just wasn't that into it. I did at Uni but once I was working, I went to pubs and clubs more, or cover bands to dance.
In my 30's,with kids, it stopped completely. Just too expensive with a sitter.
In my 40s we started having a lot of parties, predominately for me to dance and I started going to gigs again, but a more normal amount. Then my Dad died and that year it got a bit manic. Even I could see that. I decided I would cut back but somehow, since lockdown, it's got more manic, not less.
My music has evolved from predomintately pop up until my 30s, then rap in my 40s to edm in my 50s. I see rap to edm as a logical progression because it beats and rhythm...though at a glance it probably looks odd.
I was leaving a festival with friends and said "So when is our next one?" and then in a panic asked "We do have a next one?" as I realised nothing stretched out on the horizon...We didn't go to Bluesfest this year because it didn't line up with school holidays and had our anniversary trip to pay for, so we booked a week of Bluesfest side gigs instead, having our own little festival. I have my new ritual of 'practice New Years' with Hot Dub on the Harbour and Harbourlife the next day, and of course Field Day is now bigger than my NYE and a great way to start the year!
I guess the bottom line is, I've had all different sorts of musical influences over time, but music influences my life greatly, a soundtrack to wellbeing and happiness is constantly feeding my soul, from when I jump in the shower and throughout the day.
The seasonal marker of May is Mother's Day (and in Sydney apparently non stop rain and clouds that stop you seeing the Southern Lights when the rest of the world gets to see the Aurora).
I took Mum to Lotus with my sister. I also managed to accidently cancel the booking at 3pm the day before, but a frantic phonecall rectified the situation.
I was amazed that neither of my family had ever had shallot pancake, ome of my all time favourites (if done right).
The dumplings were sensational, as always and so were the desserts (fancy fried ice cream for me!)
Everyone had a good time, but me most of all, as getting Mum out of the house is becoming trickier...not in ability but will. David Jones Flower Show and Mother's Day....big tick. Now to find some other reason to lure her out of the house....
I used to work with a woman who was about 15 years older than me and we became friends. She'd join us for nights out and weekends away. She moved on to a different workplace, but we remained friends. Eventually she moved to Italy and we even visited her there, children in tow as our lives changed with the passage of time.
She wrote this book, Leaning towards Pisa about her move to Italy and began work on her second novel. Unfortuanely, she was struck down with pancreatic cancer shortly and hurriedly finished the manuscript. She died not long after.
The second novel is historical fiction, looking at three years in the life of Giacomo Puccini while he wrote Madama Butterfly.
It is the Centenary of Puccini's death and all around the world, Opera Houses are beginning their celebrations of his work.
Sue's daughter entrusted one of Sue's life long friends from her University days at Cambridge to prepare the manuscript for publishing. As a result, I'll be at the book launch next week and get my hands on a copy.
It is bittersweet, as she really wanted this book published, and the timing brings a constant reminder of her loss, every time I see Puccini mentioned in the news.
However, the strange part is, in the to-ing and fro-ing of emails, names keep popping up. Her friends that I heard stories about, as you do when you catch up. All these names are very familliar, even though I have never met them, or at least only did briefly at her funeral to put faces to names.
We are linked to people in many ways, some just in the shared loss of a friend. You don't realise how much you peek through a window into other people's lives until the storyteller is gone and you realise how well you feel you know the stranger.
I guess that's the legacy of a life well lived: enduring friendship.
Puccini's Butterfly is available now on Amazon in ebook. The hard copy will be available from 28 May.
I had a double up last night - one of my favourite things. I feel I'm really making the most of a night. I went to Oliver Coleman for the Comedy Festival (def go if you ever get a chance to see him), then we stopped for a drink a the bar next door. We jumped in an uber and after picking up my friend's daughter to get her home from work, we shot into the city for Sam Fisher. A bit of fun stuff, a bit of Mum stuff, a bit of energising, uplifting stuff....
I'd seen him before, going in at random (Not knowing any of his music, I'd just been seeing his name around). When I said I was going that time, my friend said "I'm really surprised you like him". I had to point out that I hadn't heard any of his music. She continued "Oh, he doesn't seem like your sort of thing".
Anyway, he was really great - and while he was a little slow for me, his chatter was highly entertaining so when I saw he was back, I mentioned I might go on FB. My festival friends announced they'd got tickets and would see me there. I had to point out to them that he wasn't a DJ and might be a little slow for them...they were just going on my say so, also not knowing him.
In the end one was sick so the other brought her husband along. He had listened and liked him.
Fisher was brilliant, and the crowd were really there for him. It's such a great vibe. But this song sums up my existential angst (or mania) perfectly. It's a good reminder to live in the moment, to treasure time and for me, the need to really squeeze as much into daily life as you can.
This gift we have is to be enjoyed while we can!
The bottom line is - you don't know what you like until you give it a go, so take a punt on things. It might just become your new favourite....
I'm grateful to have some friends who are as 'all in' as me. That makes it all the more enjoyable!
Ultimately, curiosity is it's own reward.
(I'd also picked Oliver Coleman at random because he was on at a time that suited me and he's been my favourite so far after Aaron Chen at the Comedy festival, so I now have a new comedian to follow too!)
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