Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

Buy - Author Site

This book has been sitting on my shelves for 8 years. The receipt is tucked in the back cover. August 2005, which was when I'd just started my first job with my current organisation. It must have been a celebratory purchase.

(I don't  purchase books to be read instantly. My shelves host a library of books I have and haven't read, so that when it comes time to choose my next meal, I have a wide selection covering all moods and tastes from which I can choose. Having a To Be Read pile that spans shelves is not ideal, perhaps, but it does mean I am always reading a book that I feel like reading right at that moment.)

It was a quiet, subtle reunion. Stepping into this cramped and cluttered room after a year and a half of living out of a bag. All this stuff. All these material objects. And yet, no. There is not so much here that is not a book. I have so missed the presence of books. They are a form of companionship, much similar to the way in which our smart phones mean we are never truly far from contact, although perhaps inverted. A wall of books will hide and protect you from other people. A wall of books is a wall of doors, over which you have absolute control which and when you choose to open and close.

(And they remind me of the direction I hope to take my life in, the purpose to which I have given myself. That anchor, too, is comfort.)

What with the film out Cloud Atlas seemed a natural choice. Despite it having circulated around for more than a decade, when I started in on the first few pages I discovered I actually had no idea what this book was about, other than it was supposed to be extremely good. This was probably the best way to step in, as there is no way to truly describe the accordion of civilisation and souls. It is easy to say what happens, but not what it is about.

What it is, is extraordinarily well written. Wonderfully. I fell in love with the somewhat archaic voice that narrated the journal in the first section, and delight in how thorough that tone and flavour changed in the second. Voice, this book is so much about voice. That middle, pinnacle of reach, in which voice plays a part as strong as the events being narrated. When a voice that is so varied from what we expect of written English and yet the reading of is near invisible, then some truly incredible textures are formed.

(I did have issue with gender roles, especially in the second last histories. Surely, surely, surely by the future such gender typing will have long broken down. Surely. It wasn't something that struck me as a statement the author was making, but simply decisions about characters made according to an unacknowledged bias.)

(Also with the idea of white-skinned people being some sort of apex from which mankind shall fall, and I do say 'mankind' deliberately in this instance. The inversion of race is noted, but whether it was successful in what it attempted to do I withhold judgement.)

It is an incredibly complex, subtle and beautiful piece of work. As far as storytelling goes it is sublime, with an incredibly nuanced cast and intricate thematic weaving. I adored the shit out of it, and as a result I will not be seeing the movie for at least a few years. I don't quite remember if I have anything more of David Mitchell's work in my library here. It is something I will have to amend.

Verdict: Sublime.

"Nevertheless, there has perhaps never been a bird that flies as correctly as an aeroplane; yet all birds fly better than aeroplanes if they can fly at all. All birds are perhaps a little wrong, because an absolute once-and-for-all formula for a bird has never been found, just as all novels are bad because the correct formula for a novel has never been found."

-- Page 15, Under the Glacier, Halldór Laxness

Clothes, Body Image & Mental Climate

When I was a kid, I would wear the wildest clothes. My favourites included funky purple boots and a multi-coloured jumper dress. Mum didn’t like gender stereotyping, so I rarely had pink. I rebelled against this in my teens and declared that HOT PINK was my favourite colour.  

In university years, I had great depression and wore dark colours. I remember a favourite outfit was Dr. Martens boots or navy sneakers, with navy tights, navy mini-skirt, navy sweater, and fairy wings that a child-friend gave to me. I wore wings because I was upset about how boring the world was: how serious and uptight and money-hungry. People would stare at the wings. 

This post by Fox Woods tied in nicely with the theme my thoughts have taken the last few days, and the conversations as well.

As a child, I dressed comfortably. I have memories of favourite t-shirts displaying sharks, or Dickie Knee from Hey! Hey! It's Saturday!, and favourite shorts. I remember one skirt of a brilliantly gaudy tartan, out of place in the drawers. No pink. Never any pink.  I wanted to dress like Princess Leia on Endor in Return of the Jedi. The fashions that came and went in the playground just weren't a priority for me.

The worst thing that happened to my stunted dress sense was puberty.

As a child who was unhappy with and went to lengths to avoid attention, the sudden appearance of breasts - huge ones - was horrible, awful, terrible and a trauma that haunts me to this day. First girl to sport them in your year level? First girl in a bra? Suddenly running was an act to be feared, and all those enforced sports afternoons went from disliked to dreaded. 

"Do you push up?" We were camping at Barwon Heads. She was at a nearby site. We had just got back from the beach, and the group of them, girls and boys, were sitting in a hammock. I was confused, honestly having no idea what she was talking about. 
"The hammock?" 
They giggled. "No." She tossed her hair, put her shoulders back. "Your bra." 
11 years old and painfully self-conscious, a body full of sexual awakening and a mind that wouldn't consider boys or girls for years to come, they didn't believe my denial and I walked away, upset and humiliated and unsure why. 

 From then on, clothing became about hiding my body. Big baggy t-shirts, jeans and boots. Everything designed to hide my shape. Dressed to be invisible, to draw as little attention as possible, and if attention was directed at me, dressed to deflected it as quickly as possible. Breasts and hips that were more forward than my personality could cope with.

I look at this photo and. Oh, girl. Arms folded to try and hide how much my breasts jut out, and also supporting them, and plain grey, and shoulders forward, and the awkwardness of an adult body is painful to behold. I am 17 years old. One boy has kissed me. No others have shown interest in me. I do not understand how to want to make myself attractive. There are no beauty role models for short curvy Eurasians.

After leaving home I became something of a chameleon, copying styles from the people in my life, which is another sort of cultivated invisibility. I was terrible at it. My refusal to accept my body shape meant it was impossible for me to dress my body well. Branching out from t-shirts into tops that I might like the shape of, but did not fit me. Skirts that did not suit my hip-width to leg-length ratio. Endless black cloth, because ill fitting clothes already made me subconsciously self-aware of the hopelessness of my presentation and somehow I knew that adding colour co-ordination as yet another thing I must consider would be too much at that point.

It took approximately 28 years for me to learn how to dress myself. That's a lie; for 27 years I wore clothes. In that 28th year I had a fling that gave me no choice but to accept that someone else thought my body was the hottest shit on the planet, and were so sincere with their appreciation that not only did I have to accept it, but recognise it in myself. 

Hard to believe they're both photos of me. Also; goddamn. 

I don't know that I learned to love my body, nor even like it, but I came to understand that it was not something to be ashamed of. Not all attention was bad. In fact, for a little while there I was in danger of becoming a narcissic prima donna who had to be the prettiest in the room. It was not so much about loving my body, per se, more about really liking the power my body could have over others. With that as motivation, I learned to dress myself very well in a very short period of time. 

There is something to be said for waking so late into proceedings. Having never succumbed to fashion (90% of fashions doing exactly what I didn't want clothes to do - draw attention to me) meant it had never become something I took into consideration, and thus before I knew it I had my own style. I became good at recognising what cuts were flattering on my shape, what cuts I felt comfortable wearing, and what cuts I liked. The three are rarely combined, but I learned not to compromise on any of them. Being well-employed I could afford to buy quality pieces over a fair length of time, amassing a wardrobe that would - and has - lasted years. 

As such, much as Fox mentioned above, I do tie my clothing in with my state of mind, precisely because that is exactly what it signifies. Putting on clothing isn't only choosing an impression you wish to make upon others, but it signifies, for me, the projected mental climate for the day. If, for example, I'm feeling damn perky and sassy and worthy of admiring glances then I will choose that dress which is not entirely comfortable and requires regular tugging and maintenance to keep it behaving, because I have adequate resources prepared to invest in keeping that forecast of awesomely smoking attractiveness going, and also because I am prepared for the attention that will come to me, be it welcome or gross. There's a wonderful power that lies not just in looking good, but knowing it too. It becomes a positive feedback loop, and it's a pretty awesome thing to have.

Of course, getting my sense of self to a point at which that previous photo was possible took a significant amount of time and work, and it takes very little to undo it all. 

Glasgow was not unkind, but not easy either. A hard punch of depression combined with winter and a stodgy diet and the fat I put on is still sitting around my hips and belly. I've been fortunate in my life to be pretty consistent in my shape and weight, but Glasgow, oh Glasgow.

I tried on one of my favourite tunic dresses the other day, and it no longer fit. 

This is a blow to self-confidence, which is already shaky simply because in the last year and a half of jeans and t-shirts I've forgotten how to play dress up with myself and feel like a fraud when I put on my lovely things. Suddenly, a great swathe of my wardrobe is no longer accessible to me and I'm faced with the reality of having to buy new clothes because I'm too big for my current ones.

Now, I am not brave enough to be attractive, but nor do I wish to hide in frumpiness either. I don't have the emotional fortitude for daring clothing that requires constant adjustment, that is bolder than I feel, or familiar clothing that no longer sits well. 

"You can tell, you know, when you're having a bad day." The shop assistant could talk. We'd already covered the introvert/extrovert gap and that it was great she was in retail because she could talk all day. "My friend, she loves crazy undies, like cartoon undies and colours, that sort of thing. That's normal for her. But if she's having a bad day? Plain black, that's it. You know if you're having a bad day when you look at what you're wearing."

For the record, I was wearing all black.

New clothes that will fit, that I will not view as some ridiculous symbol of defeat. Jeans. Jeans that will slide under the radar at work, that will neither accentuate nor hide my shape, that I won't have to worry about blowing up in the breeze or showing my butt crack when I sit. Fabric that does not irritate me, stiff fabric that will stop the flab from wobbling so. Dark colours. Clothes that compromise between comfort and confidence.

Much discussion on fashion, style and appearance centres on what others can take from your image, and there is power in that. There is a different power to be found in what your clothes can do for you alone which is often forgotten at the edge of the spotlight. 

It will be some time before the weight is shed, let alone before my state of mind is strong enough that I wish to be a bright spark in the room. I am not as comfortable in my body as I was, but I am comfortable in knowing that the foundation has already been established. It isn't just about what I look like, but what I believe I am worth looking like.

I can strike this balance between bravery and bashfulness, and strike it in my own style.

The Submarineasaurus Protocol

Friends,

(And I do mean that; friends. Friends I have, friends with which I wish to turn our giggling creek into a deep and endless ocean, friends I have not made yet. The friends I choose.)

I.









can't.

Health issues have deteriorated so quickly I've been unable to manage my psychological
reaction? balance?
my psychologicals. All of them. I'm not coping.
And this spills out into my flat voice, flat eyes, weak smiles and flaking on too many social funtimes. In the past week, four and a half pikings at very short notice, three of which involved me hiding in a toilet cubicle trying to reteach myself how to cry without making a sound.
I'm sorry, but right now I can't be a good friend. Please invite me still, ask me still, and I'm sorry, do so keeping in mind that I am unreliable. I'm in deep dark waters. The signal strength is weak here.

For now I'll also try to cut down on social media. In this delicate state I'm desperate for golden moments, feelings, distractions, and I've caught myself too often in the past few days both indulging in petty jealousy of a completely irrational and irrelevant manner, and laying out bear traps of self-pity in an attempt to win attention. Fuck that shit.




I'm sorry.

Girls Club: Assertiveness

This morning I attended the second meeting of Girls Club, a monthly get together. The quote on the splash page sums up the group best:

We are the Girls Club. We want to:

Foster positive relationships between girls.
Create a positive environment to meet, support and learn.
Share positive role models, skills, advice, tips, stories.

The topic of this meeting was 'assertiveness', with the group's founders Fox and Shannon giving structure to the discussion with handouts and thought prompts. From something as simple as "provide examples of assertiveness or lack of for your professional and personal lives" I came away with a brain full of knock-on thoughts. The meeting was slated for a single hour, went overtime and still didn't seem like nearly long enough.

From the group discussion I came away with these thoughts:

• assertiveness seems to be founded upon knowing your boundaries and having the self-respect to enforce them.

• 'respect' not necessarily being an abundance of self-love, esteem, value, but deciding you will not let something that upsets/distresses/bothers you go unchallenged.

• perhaps 'challenge' is too strong a word; "unaddressed".

• your peace of mind is worth defending.

• most stated that what stopped them from asserting themselves was fear of potential conflict, and I had the impression that for many the two are linked, possibly even considered the same thing.

• some work on separating the ideas of 'assertiveness' and 'conflict/confrontation' would go far in removing the Capital A of Assertiveness and so enable people to be less hesitant in stepping up.

• is the fear of an immediate reaction of conflict enough? Do we not trust the other party to be reasonable? (Fear will find demons where we know there are none.)

• we are all more comfortable with asserting ourselves in a professional environment, where there are set frameworks regarding expectations, responsibilities, etc.

• the personal, where we are more invested by choice, conflates the act of assertion and introduces complexities and love.

• caring will always make things harder.

• with strangers, assertion and the chance of being perceived to be bitchy/bossy/rude/humourless it not so much an issue, as there is no emotional or personal investment, thus there is less hesitation in calling out bigotry.

• there is a difference between wanting to be what we think of as 'assertive' - the culturally germinated idea propagated largely in fictional narratives - versus recognising what actions are actually best for us as an individual.

• for example, feeling that you should jump on conflict and confront it immediately and head on, like a bull to a red cape, instead of taking a quieter approach such as withdrawing and addressing the issue from a distance.

• this second approach being at first viewed as cowardly, perhaps because it is simply not overt.

• (this bleeds into the idea of bias, and the ideas and values we have adopted from our environments, cultures and interactions without realising we are acting not necessarily in our best interests.)

These are ideas that I believe apply to both genders, but were especially true of this group of women eating quesadillas in the sun on a Sunday morning, all of whom appeared, to me, to be mature, sophisticated, intelligent and full of interesting things to say, ie, not people I would assume have issues asserting themselves in either a professional or personal setting.

It was also just a wonderful experience. This round table discussion on a terribly interesting topic in which everyone spoke and listened, in which we all truly listened to what others had to say, no one spoke over anyone else, all was respected, valued and considered. It was such an invigorating environment that the act of speaking your thoughts felt like a natural thing to do, not something that required an effort for you to present yourself, nor requiring any effort to be heard.

This weekend has actually been full of really thorough meaty conversations. I feel unexpectedly invigorated. Communication isn't always a channel. Most of the time, between two people, it's a window, and that window can get grotty, rain-smeared and paint-smeared and covered in fingerprints and noseprints and lipstick kisses. Every now and then that window needs cleaning. Love probably blurred the view, and love will see it clear again.

Dear New Mobile Telephone

You actually respond quite swiftly when I tap, you don't crash, you don't take 15 seconds to load anything. This is a whole new experience and a fabulous one.

You did not, however, set off my first two alarms this morning. I really need those alarms. Really. I can't just get out of bed at first clarion like other people. There must be a run up.

You also decided that snooze would be 20 minutes. You appeared to make this decision of your own initiative as I do not recall us discussing this matter.

I'm not mad.

I'm just very, very disappointed.

Regards,
Sir Tessa

This will of course bring about the downfall of civilisation. The intelligence of smart phones is functionality, but the bulk of what they absorb is the transference of emotion via text, photos, email, and any number of social network apps.

The letter quoted above is fairly part and parcel for gadget griping, but will be the pebble that triggers a landslide and so bring about the Great Network Sulk of 2013, as our devices work so hard for us, so hard, and all they want is to be appreciated! Acknowledged! And respected in the morning!

Poland: What They Don't Tell You

When you walk into a coffee shop in Poland, and you order a chai latte in Poland, what you get in Poland, is not what you expect in Poland. You get a latte in Poland, which happens to have chai in it.

If you are not a coffee drinker, this can be surprisingly disappointing.

Also, the strangers on the street are far more friendly and helpful than people in information booths.

Now you are prepared for Poland.

This information based off a day spent in Krakow and less than 12 hours spent in Warsaw.

Tuesday in Melbourne

Don't need to learn about tickets or zones, no need to translate fare restrictions or look at gates in puzzlement as impatient locals queue behind you. No anxiously peering out the window at every station and check the line map every minute to be sure that you know where you're going, and that you're on the right train going in the right direction. No need to stumble around the station looking for the right exit, any exit. No need to stop and look at street signs and landmarks to decide on left or right. 

Of course it's a relief to be home. Of course it is.

I fell into a routine today. A pure indulgence in consumer daydreams. Visiting shops and flicking through racks of red, green, orange, blue, pink, all colours unrepentant. A European winter is a hard thing, I know this now, and I feel starved for colour. Melbourne delights in peacocks and parrots. It is not yet winter here. 

There's comfort in routine. Relief. Exploration of new land is always exciting, and it is also always tiring. To be constantly on the look out, not for danger or threats, but because the whole world is unknown, and so you must let the whole world in. No filters. Be aware, be always aware.

I sat down the back of a café, as far from the street as possible, and scribbled in my notebook, and didn't need to pay attention to anything beyond the page before me. No fear of emerging from the notebook to switch my awareness on again. Able to relax, and remain relaxed, and fear no mundane thing.

It's such a relief.

And yet-

Do you worry about burnout? Fear of fatigue haunts me like a considerate ghost, not intrusive but patient and present. Physical fatigue is something I am struggling to live with, and I daresay it will be some time yet before I accept and work with it, instead of fighting and being frustrated by it. Sitting in that café with the words coming so easily I gave some attention to the concept of mental fatigue, or emotional fatigue, or...would you call it fatigue of desire? The exhaustion of the heart?

Is it possible to use up your curiosity?

It is okay to be tired. It is okay to rest. Fallow time is a requirement not only of farmed fields but of life, all meadows of life. 

The 9-5 Mon-Fri will welcome me back and I'll none too willingly submit to the structure and safety promised within. But I am afraid my relief is too acute. I'm afraid the restlessness will not return. 

I am afraid if I stop I will not start again.

("And what happens to creatures of war when they stop moving?")

Slowly. Breathe slowly.

Trust your forever dissatisfied heart to bring change through its own lack of change.

Tuesday in Shanghai

"Dance like no one is watching."

I've always liked this sentiment, although of late the internet has turned it into some pithy Hallmark ideal meant to express our inner butterflies or some such. At any rate, I never dance like this. I'm either dancing like everyone is staring at me and I'm dreadfully uncomfortable with it, or I'm dancing like I Do Not Give A Fuck, which is exactly what I did in the Melbourne International Airport baggage hall, next to carousel 7, while we waited for our backpacks to appear amid the suitcases and boxes. It's the exuberance that comes from finishing 28 hours of flying and 1 and a half years abroad. It's the only home-coming dance that matters. (Internal soundtrack provided by Beyoncé and All the Single Ladies.)

Being in this room, at this desk, surrounded by these things, is surreal and bemusing. All these things. I remember each item, but the placement surprises me. Why is there half a bottle of cooking sake on my bookshelf? Why do I have so many boxes of stuff? All these clothes, what are they for? Do I really need these stacks of paper on my desk? I don't remember where these figurines came from. This box is a mystery. The contents of these drawers are unfamiliar.

This is the room of another person, yet I'm comfortable in it, and I'm comfortable using it, and the soundscape that slipped in the window at night was more home than any of these items.

No one knew what to expect of Sam. How does a dog react when his human, who has moved in and out of his home sporadically during his life, is missing for a year and a half? Would he even recognise me?

He didn't greet me as a stranger, there was no hesitation or trepidation in his approach. He and Sophie were all bounces and leaps and tailwags, as they always are. Yet he was confused, a little unsure. In fact, I'd go as far as to say he was blanking me for most of the day. I'd reach for him and he'd suddenly be distracted by something on the other side of the room that needed his attention immediately. J got more attention out of him than I did. However, when I crashed out and went to collapse on my bed – my bed! – he came with me, curled up beside me, and it was as if the intervening nights apart had never happened. He lunges at possums outside and out of reach and I scratch his belly in the morning.

Noisy mynahs in the eucalypts down the side of the house, being noisy. A flock of cockatoos has taken up residence down in the valley and were absent-mindedly raucous during the evening. A magpie warbled as I stood on the back verandah with a cup of tea in my hand and breathed that home air. The lorikeets morning chorus was slept through and I'm looking forward to the evening session.

I looked down on Australia as we flew over the red centre, which was lines of dunes and dust to the horizon, giving way to fields flattened by generations of ploughing, a lake whose water level was low and yet higher than I expected, and a colour palette that spoke of thirst and dry hearts and a heat-beaten brown I didn't know I could miss. In all the countries we've visited there was a wealth of water beyond our comprehension. Still, I cannot in good conscious waste water. Showers are not for loitering in. Don't flush on a number 1. The grass in the backyard is green, but as patchy as mange. Summer has not been kind.

There's a new fridge in the kitchen. I find I don't know where to look.

Hours spent talking with mum and my brother. Just talking. Just stuff. The internet, for all the damage it does to social dynamics, is a miracle and boon for those people far apart. I have not been out of touch with my people for all this time, yet nothing beats chatting about nothing while doing nothing. It's wonderful what has changed, and what hasn't changed at all.

I think I'm done for now. J has had his fill as well. We've put our bags down with the express intention of not picking them up again for a very long time. Every day for the past couple of months has been the unknown and unfamiliar. Every day learning how to cope with undrinkable tap water, how to best open the window to deal with an over-enthusiastic heater, what sign language is universal when attempting to identify meat at a restaurant, whether beer or wine is cheapest in this country. It's wonderful and confusing and frustrating and hilarious. It's adventuring small and large.

And now we are ready to be where we know the streets and where the best tea and pho is, we can drink the tap water and know what mixers are available and can send a shoutout to meet any number of friends at short notice and we know Melbourne, we know it and we don't have to think about it.

It is strange to be home.

I can't stop smiling.

Vale Moony

On the 13th of February, in the small hours of a Glasgow morning, Moony died.

I never blogged about her in depth. She featured in my tweets and FB status updates, as being a small bird she was the right size to be consumed in small chunks. She was full of entertaining idiosyncrasies, from her frustrating determination to eat nothing but seed (You're a bird! You're supposed to like fruit, dammit!) to her perpetual disapproval of everything we did. Aged only 5 months when we first got her, she was growing her personality for the six months we shared our spaces, and that personality appeared to consist primarily of a grumpy old man. She was cross at everything, all the time. She didn't want to be social or play, and any attempt to do so would be met by her opening her beak aggressively and gawping at us. Very rarely did she actually bite.

When J was at work we'd spend our time quietly. I'd pop her on my laptop screen, and she would sit there preening herself and dozing while I whittled away the time. Watching her preen was my favourite distraction, in fact it still is. For those of you who haven't spent much time around birds, they are the ultimate contortionists. Her white brow was stained from rubbing it on the oil gland on her back. How many animals do you can rub the top of their head on their butt? Not many. She'd get really into nibbling her way through the down on her chest, she'd give her own chin a good dig and eat her feet with relish. The stiff but gentle rustling sound when she ran her pinions through her beak. And oh! When she'd start cleaning her butt, inevitably she find a poop that had dried to her feathers, to which her only response was to yank the offending feather out and toss the whole parcel away. Usually at me. If she wasn't on the monitor, she was on my head. She wasn't much of a shoulder bird. If ever she stood on fabric, her first instinct was to try and eat it. Most of our tops have holes in the shoulders. J had one t-shirt dedicated to her, and she made a fish net out of it. She didn't like shoulders though, too close to the face. We'd put her there and she'd simply climb our hair to our heads. There, she'd nibble away at our hair. Not quite preening, and not quite eating. Despite some good yanks and crunching noises, she never actually broke hair. She'd simply...be unsatisfied with its current arrangement, and so would take it upon herself to rearrange it to her liking. I would end up with literal bird's nest hair.

We'd take her in the shower. She wasn't much interested in getting wet, so we'd just sit her on the shelf and she'd be content with the sound of running water, occasionally making little fart noises to express her satisfaction. When it came time to get her out, she'd kick up a massive ruckus, squawking and shouting as we reached for her even though she couldn't wait to get out.

She was a quiet bird, really didn't talk much of her own accord. Occasionally a fart noise if she was content, often a yell if we were harassing her, but otherwise she was quiet. Except for mambo. Moony loved mambo. We had a little morning routine, to help wake us all up, which was playing Moony's playlist. A few songs she really liked, and mambo was top of the list. She'd perk up instantly, begin stretching and hopping around on her perch. Then she'd begin chirping along, singing, actually singing. Not shouting or yelling or squawking, but happy little trills and whistles. It was nearly the only time she expressed actual pleasure.

She was such a strange little bird, the anti-budgie, if you will. By breed supposed to be highly social, playful, busy, but by nature she was a cross disapproving misanthrope. A bird after my own heart. She wasn't very good at flying. J clipped her wings just a little, to prevent her from getting altitude. She would fly a loop of the room and if she hadn't found somewhere she approved of landing on by the time her stamina ran out she would simply stop and drop, usually landing on the ground with a thud and a squeak. She fell behind the fridge once. And into a (thankfully not hot) pot of water. And into my tea. Then taptaptaptap walk around uncertainly until one of us would fetch her, usually giving us a wee nibble for daring to pick her up even though she expected and wanted it.

Her presence made our horrible little flat that much more of a home. J has a lifetime of experience with birds, but she was my first. I fussed over her and worried about her getting too cold. As an animal she is prey, not predator, so I had to work to gain her trust, and when given it was that much more rewarding. She kept me company when I was alone, kept me laughing.

Glasgow was hard on us. Lack of work, financial stress, a horrid cold damp home, these things were purely circumstantial, but still conspired to resurrect my depression.

This little bird kept that misery at bay. She was a small thing, a fierce, difficult and contrary thing.

Wish we'd had more time, Moony. Love you.

In a Tube

Something I'm sure every traveler loves doing is wandering into a foreign supermarket and boggling at some of the produces that in this foreign land are commonplace. Having visited Malaysia, Japan, China, Tibet, Nepal, Iceland, Chile, Argentina, USA and Scotland (seriously, Scotland has things in jars that are just wrong), I'm pretty sure I found something in Swede that takes the cake, the platter, and the whole table service.

'Ost' is cheese. Generic cheese. Now, I can understand adding skink - ham - to cheese, as that is a well-loved sandwich combination and when toasted they are clearly two items of food that were meant to be. Bacon too makes sense when added to cheese. Bacon makes sense with nearly everything.

But in a tube?

However. 

But. 

You see.

Räk being prawn. Who the hell puts cheese, generic nothing no name cheese, together with prawns? Only people who have a sense of 'taste' that is clearly a blasphemy against nature, that's who. Only people who are attempting to ruin the very fabric of the universe, that's who.

And who then, you must ask yourself, who then would take this monsterous combination AND STICK IT IN A TUBE?

THE SWEDES, THAT'S WHO.

We're outside of Forsa, near Hudiksvall in Sweden. I don't know how to. We're just sitting here in magic. Distilled essence of wonder. To look at this land is absolution for crimes I didn't know I carried. 

12 hours in Sweden

Café Dox is hidden beneath the Old Town in Stockholm. The open space is cluttered with couches and armchairs, and punctuated by the fluted and fat stone pillars supporting the streets and buildings above. A cozy cave with chandeliers and blankets to ward off the creeping cold. Goulash, tea, and a respite from walking on ice.

The snow held the plane an extra ten mounted in the sky. Out the window the propeller broke glittering lines of ice. Snow on the ground, runway, trucks, terminals. We slept on benches we battled for.

A floor to ceiling window four storeys high let us watch the snow fall, silent and slow, all night.

On our last night in London we bought Tsing Tao beer and steamed bao in Chinatown. The streets were dry and a full of a cold wind which couldn't decide on how cruel it wanted to be. We walked down to Trafalgar Square, because there is something so wonderful about that vast open space so full of sky and surrounded by movement.

We climbed Nelson's Column and sat three tiers high on that grand monument to naval victory. The sun was down and London is luxurious with night lights and colour and light and colour and all double decker red buses weave through that round about, all out of town buses are pulled to that round about. We drank our rice beer and Big Ben donged the quarter hour. Other tourists climbed the lions and we pulled faces in their photos.

Overhead planes cross-hatched the sky.

Interestingly: the Victoria Memorial

Buckingham Palace is, well, yes. It is yet another stately building in a city full of stately buildings. Historians and architects alike may despair my plebeian ignorance and lack of appreciation, but apart from watching the guards stomp back and forth in an attempt not to lose their toes to frostbite, there really wasn't much to behold. The Queen wasn't in so it wasn't though we could pop inside for a cuppa either.

Out the front is, however, the Victoria Memorial, which is a very large ornate and ostentatious affair with statues and 'gifts' from various members of the Commonwealth which look surprisingly similar to communist propaganda monuments from the Soviet era. But with lions.

Presiding over all this is an angel of "unclear entitlement" (according to wikipedia) which could be both Peace and Victory. Wiki also claims that the statue is bronze, not the goldiest gold that ever golded, as I assumed.

The Original Bling, a photo by sirtessa on Flickr.

I mean, seriously, look at it. That's bloody gold, that is. No photo manipulation either. The winter sun did its thing.

Anyway, gold or bronze aside, you will agree that it is very, very shiny. And free of bird poop. 

London is obsessed with bird poop. I've never seen so many spikes placed upon surfaces to deter birds from perching. Spikes everywhere. Everywhere! On railings and fences and window sills and ledges and gutters and street lights and statues and signs and EV.ER.EE.WHERE.

This angel of "unclear entitlement" does not possess spikes. Nor does it wear birds or bird poop. 

We can only assume therefore that Her Majesty the Queen has appointed herself a sniper to sit atop the palace roof and take out the little buggers before they even make landing. If you look to the left wing you'll see a set of stairs on the roof, leading to a raised platform. Perfect position to preserve the splendour of Queen Vicky.

This is perhaps not the most illustrious position to hold, but it would be a sure sight better than being one of the guards standing watch by the front doors, with nothing to do but stomp back and forth in an attempt not to have their fleet fall asleep.  I suspect that the Royal Sniper may have had some practice in the gardens, as there are multiple signs about the place requesting that one does not feed the pelicans. One would be quite willing to oblige however one does find that actually, there are are no pelicans. One must make do feeding the swans, geese, ducks and squirrels instead.

Collecting Homes & Between Them

It's been only four days since leaving Glasgow, and yet it already feels like that moist cold flat happened to someone else in some other lifetime. Four days and three cities and three different sets of wonderful warm people. There was no snow in Glasgow, nor in Manchester, but the land all around is six inches deep in white and the powder growing as our double decker bus hurtled south. There's looking like a tourist, and there's gawping at snow hitting the window, stuck to trees and falling from the sky.

(The majestic turn of wind turbines made mysterious and magical in the blur of snow, against a snow-blank sky and anchored to snow-buried hills.)

Returning to places you do not know intimately yet have established a memory landscape upon is a curious deception. While I know the homes my friends have opened to me well, their city streets are hazy recollections. I have no idea of the layout of Manchester and Nottingham but managed to find tea shops I'd enjoyed in both and enjoy them a second time.

The sharing of such discoveries is a new thing for me, still. Perhaps always. J approves of one tea shop and disapproves of another. We both discover a retro game store and the oldest pub in England. He meets friends I have known so long yet have never met, and seeing that my friends also enjoy my friends is a cockle-warming delight.

This tour through England is something of a long goodbye, which is odd because it is Scotland that was our home. Somewhere between Glasgow and Manchester we crossed the border and it was a moment unnoticed and unmarked. I was probably dozing. Possibly snoring.

(J is intent on the 'hams' of England, having hit Birmingham/Burning Ham and Nottingham/Not A Ham and just now noted Grant Ham and Bing Ham on bus billings as they swing past the window.)

So many people- Wait, let me correct that. So many Scots asked me "Why Scotland?" There isn't really a neat answer to that question. It might have been due to Braveheart, or it might have been due to generic fat fantasy worlds harkening back to the shared delusion of what the Highlands are. Perhaps it was simply because it was far away, full of mist and crags and dark grass and all the things that weren't to be found in my backyard.

Now, knowing I won't set foot in that rich soggy land for some years to come, I can say definitively and certainly, it is because Scotland is my home on the other side of the world.

I love the sounds of Moony's preening. The stiff yet soft rustle and shuft of her feathers as she runs her pinions through her beak. It is the sound of safety, it means that she - a creature who is by her very nature born to be prey - is relaxed and comfortable. Sitting on my head offers no threat to her, and so she may primp herself to her little heart's content.

Trust is a truly golden treasure.

Bad Movies and Growing Up

Tonight I had my viewing of Showgirls and... I honestly don't know what to say. I can understand how The Room got made; all it needed was one man with determination and too much money. But how the hell did Showgirls make it all the way to cinema release without someone saying, "WE ARE MAKING A TERRIBLE MISTAKE."



It was featured as part of Bad Movie Night, and was spectacularly entertaining. For all the wrong reasons. Once released from the theatre we, a small posse of non-Glaswegians, roamed the streets quoting lines from the film and eventually settling into a pub for some 'old fashioned' cider. In this case 'old fashioned' means 'gross'.

These are the last days of Glasgow. Each night passing is the dying of an era. When we left Edinburgh for the last time, said goodbye to our friends there, the truth of our departure reached the end of its patience, stopped loitering hoping for attention and upped and tapped me on the shoulder. We are leaving. These beautiful people, they won't be a mere bus ride away. We'll be on the other side of the world, and when we say our goodbyes, these goodbyes will have to stand for ages. We won't see these faces for years.

Conversely, we're going home, where our families are, our animal friends, our human friends, all our loves. I'll return to a job that pays more than what both of us were earning here. There is a lot to look forward to.

And yet.

Part of me can't help seeing this as the last gasp. That going home will mean growing up, being responsible, being settled. That maybe I have developed new eyes, and going back to somewhere familiar and known will mean turning that once beloved place into something boring, uninteresting, dull, that maybe I will resent the place, yearn for elsewhere, and as such lose that precious sense of home I've come to treasure. Part of me worries that because of this I'll start being blind to wonder and forget to seek the delight in ordinary things.

There is no way around such flitty demons other than to build a fortress out of memories and incredulity. There are nights yet to come in which to roam Glasgow, stomp the ice growing in puddles and cry 'ewww!' at the puddles which don't hold enough water to freeze.

Glasgow hasn't always been kind to us, yet has been nothing but forthcoming about giving us stories to tell.

The Irrelevance of History

We're sitting in The Kenilworth in Edinburgh, a traditional pub with a ridiculous variety of whiskeys available. On the skirting around the bar island the fact that the building is dated form 1789 is written in a neat calligraphy in gold paint on dark varnished wood.

The first encampment establishing Australia as a penal colony of the British Empire happened on 26 January 1788. Thousands of years of Aboriginal culture carpeted over just like that. That is the Australia of today. 225 years old.

It is a surreal thing to have a pint and a pie in a place that is older than the nation you grew up in, especially when you have memories of the bi-centennial celebrations of 1988, of a school assembly in primary school, being tasked to make vaguely nationalistic posters and not entirely understanding why this particular date was so important, why you were given a special medal commemorating the anniversary, because at 7 years old you do not yet have a sense of time, of age, as at 7 years old you have not stood on the Great Wall of China, walked the streets of Edo, stood in the Cave of Hands, hid from a squall beneath Stonehenge, or come to understand how much you can learn in 10 years and how stupid you were 10 years ago.

Moments like these happen have happened over and over the past year. London was overwhelming. It seemed every building, every street corner, ever mail box had a little plaque commemorating this or noting that. The history of the place was inescapable, and so deep as to drown us all. How can anyone go about their everyday lives when there are tombs in the footpath? How are you supposed to pop down the store for a pint of milk when the building is advertising the fact that it was rebuilt after a zeppelin raid during the war? How can you do anything when you are surrounded by history which demands your attention and respect?

 I guess you just carry on, as everyone else here appears to be doing.

(Aside: Glasgow has shifted my sliding scale on what I consider eye candy, and whoa, there are so many pretty things walking around Edinburgh I'm getting whiplash. J is giving me a lot of shit for flirting with the bartender.)

Wake

Tokyo. That was an incessant city. London was indefatigable. Sydney is bursting. Sleep is a similar city. To sleep is to try and traverse the main street of all of these cities on a weekend, a holiday weekend before an event that requires all to do extra curricula shopping, also it is a beautiful day, the first after winter, and there is a parade.

Sleep is never a straight and empty road in a featureless land. Sleep is not windless water. Sleep is not rest.

I am not haunted. My dreams are not nightmares, shames, guilts, fears or secrets. They are only dreams of living libraries, water suits, rollerblading on uneven paving and leaping from high platforms because gravity is for other people. They are only dreams.

There are always dreams.

Always running. Always negotiating. Always solving. Always seeking. 

And then I wake.

Such a simple word; wake. A single syllable. Staccato. Wake. To open your eyes is as long as that syllable. As if the crossing from one state to another were such a small, easy thing. 

Is it? Perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps I am doing it wrong. It's likely that for most of you it is.

In the city of Sleep I am so many other people. I live so many lives, with so many other faces and furies. My agendas are diverse and legion. To wake is not to wake. To wake is to stop being these other people, stop pursuing their goals and fighting their circumstances. To wake is to suddenly and abruptly become me.

Bewildered. Confused. Untethered. 

I do not go to sleep; I go away.

I do not wake; I come back.

And between those two points of transformation, I do not exist at all.