Another year over

And I always feel obliged to write, to sum up, to express hope.

And there is Chabrier, because who else (Bizet brings tears too, not just joy) pummels such unbridled cheer into the world. I spent some of today reading on the balcony (nails: Colour me Coral) and listening to a wonderful doco about Jim Morrison. It has been a slow day, just like the last few since Christmas. Comfortable long days, full of sun and thick heat. In fact since yesterday Perth has been tropical. The haze over the city yesterday was mysterious and foreign.

I have started swimming again, and in the forgiving coolness of the pool I am feeling like I am returning to myself.

This year has been less than perfect. I have moved twice and licked wounds and opened them up again, but if this year has taught me anything it's that love is unpredictable and irresistible.
This was also the first year without the resonant and wise voice of Gyula tata in the telephone at Christmas. But such emptiness makes me all the more grateful for the Gyorgy women in my life.

The best thing that happened this year was the job. Sorry, that Job with a capital J. For the first time in my life I am not a PA. And it has changed things and opened things inside me that I hadn't even realised were there, or closed. Dark rooms that are now filled with dust motes dancing in the fresh light.
I am happier in my work than I ever have been before.

And words have also settled back into my life. These last few weeks have been cyclonic in their reading fury, but I must confess that most of it has been lighter literature. I have, however, discovered and grudgingly fallen for Nikki Gemmel.

My one new year's resolution is to run the Rotto Marathon. But there are of course many other hopes that I will nurture and try to make reality. A home for a cat. A home for me. Always bettering myself at work, but remembering to play.

Happy New Year!

And from Chabrier moving on to Liszt: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goeOUTRy2es - around the 6th minute a soul explodes.

I am reading a novel set in Antarctica and it's pushing a comfortable cold through my being. I have been thinking a lot about the Great Ocean Road and how that is a place where cold angry weather works, even for me.
Standing under a flinty sky with the furious waves crashing by the Sherwood River. I miss my Victorian past sometimes.

Between two engagements on Sunday, driving down Hampton Road I came across a garage sale sign. For a fluttery moment I thought it was the old blue house, with its brickwork and pale glass. It was the next door neighbour. The wild-haired woman who shouted shouted at her granddaughter and slammed kitchen things around. I hesitated, and then stopped. I breathed in the old familiar gum on the corner, and fingered items on tables trying to decipher their stories. I bought two books.
And then walking back to where Norm was parked I wanted to stop at number 40 and put my hand on the warmed blue porchwood. It was at that moment I realised that no one from that old life is left. B & P are long gone, I can't call them and say "Remember, we lived here. Together" I haven't written to Gareth in years and then it was just the four of us. There were happy days then.

It was a beautiful and relaxing weekend, even if it was full of drink and screaming children (not at the same time)...

My late written Christmas cards are finally making it to the post office and the macerating fruit will be made into mince pies tonight. It's 66 degrees on the ground in Newman, and my heart is full of happy contrast.

Light and Dark

Here is a beautiful marbled morning, strung out of the night, and I woke way too early, but rested. And happy.
I went for a run around the lake this morning without my sidekick, but it was at a satisfying clip and I'm determined to work back up to my 10km fitness quickly, so I can start preparing for bigger and better things next year.

The weekend was a magical adventure in the south west, and although my dear Frenchman's winery was not open, I subjected myself to lunch at Vasse Felix and utterly fell in love. To the left can be seen my 'lamb shoulder' smile.

Christmas looms and I have been busily painting cards (some look good, some look like a four year old has been left alone without supervision) and thinking constantly about menus. And what should I soak the fruit in if I can't afford Drambuie?

I received a beautiful surprise in the post from Hungary yesterday. My dear old copy of the Alexandria Quartet, littered with postcards from home and a wonderful article about Bogdan Zsolt (shiver, sigh) - surely the most talented Hungarian actor of our generation- forgive me Alfoldi Robert. Even Norma received a little gift in the treasure trove and it was wonderful to speak with Mum late in the evening.

I was reminded today, when I was on the balcony unpacking the shells from Shark Bay (after three months I thought I could handle it) of the section in Garcia Marquez' 100 Years of Solitude where the main character eats soil.
I sat on the cane chair and I cried like I hadn't since he drove away that morning saying Macska I think I have to go now. I pushed the sandy grains through my fingers and the mad thought crossed my mind that I should eat it. I didn't, but it certainly rattled my mind.

Today has been a rollercoaster. I woke way too early and not in a good mood.
Coffee and breakfast at Swanbourne already feels like a ritual to start the weekend and I enjoyed myself despite the wind, with the white whipped ocean behind me.
From there I picked up Hand Me Down World and came home .... I finished half of it before N and I headed to the city to check out the Canning Stock Route project.
In the cavernous pavilion 6 of the convention centre, the starkly lit canvases glowed above plaques introducing each artist, their language and skin groups. I thought it was exceptionally well done. The curve of the route, the old familiar names struck with rough temptation, but I think it will be some time before I get the chance to actually drive it.

Afterwards we stopped in Northbridge at the Ezra Pound bar for a drink...I stayed after N left and read more of my book, and scrawled words in the back, and looked at the laneway and thought of Melbourne.
At home alone I spent some good time up in the loft, smearing paint and reading, listening to radio national and lying down gazing up through the skylight.
The crash came when I came to my room to make Christmas cards and when I went to the box for my 'use for craft' photos, other, M-photos tumbled out. And then the shells from shark bay...and so it goes.

But it's better now. Nickiy bought me a notebook with cats on it, and that sort of thing makes most things better.

From this weekend's Australian, by Nikki Gemmel, on friendship:

As I get older, I need the soldering kind. That don't try to change or hurt the other person. Aren't judgmental. Involve a cherishing. That beautiful word: empathy. Are a balm amid the great wallop of life. And often it's not when times are bad you find out who your real friends are, but when times are good.

I am fortunate in the richness of my friends.

Melbourne day one

Melbourne is vastly colder than Perth. No news there. But how wonderful to be back here, among the gray buildings under the gray sky.
I arrived at sparrow's, took the bus to Southern Crustacean and then a train to Jewell to find Timea's amazing little love-house, complete with cat and sleeping Keir.
The first words she said were "Don't look at me, I'm wretched". It's good to be here.
It's a fantastic house, and we sat drinking coffee in the thin morning and started the talk that for us never ever finishes.

Now I'm sitting at VC's dining table, shivering my tits off, but with a warm cup of tea and getting ready to head out to breakfast and then the cup. What does one drink at breakfast? Champagne? Gin? Bloody Marys? It's all much of a muchness to me at the moment after two hours' fitful sleep on the freezing plane.

I've left the Blackcurrants alone for an inordinate amount of time, and it's a hard-to-describe happiness that when I think of Perth I think of them at 'home'.
I'm already noticing how much cheaper Melbourne is, and how much more connected - the trains are incredibly convenient...and if I scrunch my eyes almost shut, it looks like there's a sliver of watery sunshine squeezing through the clouds behind the Rialto.

So, it's 3.12 and my interview was this morning. But there are no more nails (or cuticles) to chew and I'm not allowed to drink at work, so I'm trying very hard to be patient. I called my old friends at the tax office to kill some time, but now I'm just waiting to go home and attack something liquid with N.

My preparations yesterday were spot on. N and I met at Harbour Town and for the price of a new suit (ok, not quite that much!) I went like a whirlwind through shops selling lacy smalls. At home there was Old Well, grilled fish, grilling for the interview and a delectable foot massage before sleep. I felt relaxed and beautiful.
And then it was 4am and I was wide awake and my heart felt like it wanted to exit stage left.

The interview itself was short. I don't know if that's a good thing or not, but I have never felt quite this comfortable before. Now it's just a matter of waiting.

post interview, I went for a coffee with Bernie, who talked to me like a man about football. I am all prepared with my knowledgable statements for Saturday. We have a solid back line. Stuff like that.

There has been a lot of work this week, which has been welcome, partly to distract my overworked mind and heart, and partly to stop me fretting about the job. But the weekend looms welcome and close.

I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind...
My mind...my mind...
'Til I find somebody new


That's where I'm at. Head so full thoughts are painting tattoos down my cheeks.


It has been a tough couple of days. Unbelievably busy - my calendar is starting to resemble Dave's, and if I could just take away some of the stress and pressure from my dearest team mates, but I can't. In fact I fear I've added to it.
So many alternate realities have presented themselves to me, and too often, I am too scared. But in reality it's not really me who is scared.

"You said I love you. Why is it that the most unoriginal thing we can say to one another is still the thing we long to hear? (When you said it, my heart was in my throat, and I was sitting on the stairs, wishing the whole world was a different colour and you were different with it)I love you is always a quotation. You did not say it first and neither did I, yet when you say it and when I say it we speak like savages who have found three words and worship them. I did worship them, but now i am alone on a rock hewn out of my own body.
Love demands expression (how could I possibly keep it secret). It will not stay still, stay silent, be good, be modest, be seen and not heard, no. It will break out in tongues of praise, the high note that smashes the glass and spills the liquid."...

Tonight Perth put on a light show as I drove south, and you were on every street corner, watching. I drove to Sah's, and we had cheese on toast and fartmakingbeans and wine and talked. And in the view of my blessed city, sadly, none of my confusion dissipated, but I felt grateful for the night.

I'm home now, and feeling fluey and a bit feral but somehow stronger.