Any grey day, February to May

It seems utterly ridiculous to be sitting here reminiscing about grey days in Edinburgh when it’s over 42 degrees in Melbourne today… Still, call me Gen-Y if you wanna, but a world of extremes has always kinda been my thing ;-)

So any day grey from February to May… basically, an excuse to be wistfully nostalgic about all things Edinburgh… so in no particular order, and certainly not a complete list…

Coloured doors
Usually primary colours – bold and red and blue and yellow and shocking. I loved them. I loved the dark, grey, mysterious buildings too, but somehow all the more thanks to the contrast of the doors. And OK, it wasn’t every door, but there were a lot around town.

Girl Time
I have an older brother, and perhaps because of this have always been more comfortable with a lot of male company in my life. Not there. Not then. For whatever reason (though I do suspect it may have been the state of my lil heart at the time) I was all about the ladies when I lived in Edinburgh.
I shared Storm’s room, as I already mentioned, in a girl’s university dorm. There were six girls in our dorm, and four or five more across the hall, many of whom would pop over for ‘family dinner’ between study session and episodes of crappy UK TV.
And at work too… though I am famously allergic to female managers, I worked in a team of seven women, and genuinely enjoyed it.
There were boys in Scotland too of course (nice big Rugby sized ones), but they didn’t much scratch the surface.

My Mountain

This will be mentioned again and again. Every weekend, without fail and regardless of emotional state, hangovers and god awful weather, I climbed Arthur’s Seat. It was about a two and a half hour door-to-door sweat-fest, always solo. And it was a kind of exhaustion that cleansed me to my soul, which may have actually been the whole point…

Princess Street in the mornings
I walked the long way to work every day, not just because Café Lucano is the only place in Edinburgh that has real Italian coffee, but so I could walk the length of Princess Street. It was an extra 20 minutes every day… 20 minutes less sleep, every night for those few months, and I am smiling now with gratitude to myself for doing it.
Every one of those mornings I would gape up at the castle, perched illogically on its jagged edge of volcanic rock, and feel a tightness in my chest from the sheer drama of it. Amazing.

Graveyards
I have a beautiful friend, who has a beautiful daughter (who is my friend too, lucky for me), who always loved graveyards. To be fair, this friend of mine is more than a little insane, so I always thought it was kind of a strange thing to love.
Then I got to Edinburgh.

Hair elastics on the street
I have no idea why – the wind blowing them out, perhaps?! – but I have never in all of my gypsy wanderings seen so many abandoned hair elastics lying on the street as I saw in Edinburgh. To the point where if I see one now, in whichever city I find myself, I smile and think of Edinburgh.

I do quite a bit of smiling and thinking of Edinburgh, actually… :-)

Leaving Dozza

Today I feel too Sunday afternoon lazy to write eloquently (or in fact spell 'eloquently'... god bless spell check!), so I being cheeky and just posting an old email.

I've been considering posting this particular email for a while now; at the time it was a particularly cleansing, powerful thing to write. But this morning as I read it, I am quite amazed at how very different I feel from the girl who wrote it. And that is in nice ways, but I am surprised by it. I guess sometimes we don't notice the little shifts in ourselves.

Anyways, this was written from Dozza, Italy, about two months after I left. It was emailed to all my friends, so apologies if it is a little hard to follow. It was written from exactly here...

Enjoy.

Sunday 4th June, 2006

Hello lovelies

This email is my farewell from Dozza before I move on to a few days roaming Bologna, and then MEET MY PARENTS! – Saturday 10th June, 4pm, bottom of the Spanish Steps, Roma – and thus hang up my farming volunteering boots for the foreseeable future.

And it comes with a warning… well, a couple…

One: I have been isolated, and somewhat SOCIALLY STARVED for conversation, so it’s long. Read it only if and when you want.

Two: Mostly these emails from people who are traveling are of the “where-I’ve-been-and-what-I’ve-been-doing” variety. This one is not. I’ve been here in Dozza. Since Cannes I haven’t moved. I could spend this email describing this gorgeous countryside, my hours raking hay, this sweet polite family and their small-town cat Boss Hog with his Big City Attitude – but I don’t wanna. This is a “HOW-I’ve-been-and-HOW-I-am” email. You have been warned…;-)

OK… so here I sit on a Sunday morning… looking out the window from Victoria’s computer, and oh wow… I tell myself “ALWAYS remember this view”…chooks cackling… sky a perfect blue, streaked only slightly by whisps of white clouds… pines and vines and boxy square terracotta houses rising up from the valley before me. Yeah, I think Dozza has healed and stilled things I didn’t even know wanted it.

And to confirm that little thought… right as I write this, the church bells chime melodically down the hill from my gorgeous Dozza. There is steaming cup of too-strong black Italian coffee beside me… and yes, this might be heaven. Yes, thank you Dozza.

Because the thing is, in lots of ways I feel like I want to be back to the girl I was when I landed in Rome these weeks ago… back to the girl who lived danced cried laughed her way WHOLE HEARTEDLY through a glorious Melbourne Summer, but all those who know me and saw that know that level of energy wasn’t to be sustained. It was awesome. It was beyond fun. But it was the kind of hectic best not sustained. I had to come-down from it eventually, and here in the sweet little Dozza, I have.

But DAMN I LOVED that Summer! Thank you, those who shared played laughed danced MADE IT REAL with me. I think now in reflection that perhaps I needed that kind of madness to make the transition from that job… BRUIZE and its bruises needed some serious fun to heal.

But now, after a few weeks of fitness and constant busy at Antonello’s to distract me from the heartbreak of leaving you all in Australia (HOW did I do that?! THANK GOD I WAS DRUNK!), I’ve had a few weeks of silence. Of quiet stillness. Of Dozza. Where people life time MEANDER by… and some days it’s been too slow, some days I’ve been too alone, some days I’ve been too damn SOBER!

But as it comes to its peaceful smiling end, I can see that Dozza – like shavasana at the end of a yoga class – has been the time to truly integrate the changes.

It’s like Ferris says – “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” And here I have had that time – not only to look around at where I actually am (that came last, in fact), but to look around at where I’ve been… who I’ve been there with… and my - THE FUN WE HAVE DONE!

In the still quiet serenity of this gorgeous green valley I have thought and smiled and cried and laughed about you all. I guess some people don’t say this stuff out loud (little own in emails!) but I do, so I will…

People, relationships, connections, personalities… these are my favourite things, and the things that endlessly fascinate me. To that end, the people who fill my life are truly integral to who I am. My friends, my family – you guys define me.

Rest assured if you’re reading this now (if you’ve made it this far awake!) I’ve thought of you and missed you and loved you some time in these last weeks. I chat to you on my endless walks, dream of you in my deep exhausted sleeps, wish you were around and hope you’re smiling wherever you are.

Because my life is f%#ken awesome guys, and you have helped build it to be that way. After these weeks, being as restful and healthy and isolated as I’ve ever been, I’ve appreciated you love, your support and how REAL YOU ALL ARE so so much.

And with all this integration relaxation appreciation… with my sails full to capacity with fresh new-Summer breeze… to The Next Chapter I go.

Smiling.

Lots.

So thanks.

Lazer lights and open hearts...

Since I am sitting here wearing a Sziget Festival t-shirt, let's go back to the year it all began...

Saturday 12th August, 2006

Sziget. Oh dear, oh wow, oh My sweet fair Sziget. This was my first trip to what has become the festival to hereforth ruin all festivals for me. Sziget is amazing.

'Sziget' is the Hungarian word for 'island'; a ship building island in The Danube river that seperates Buda from Pest is, for one short, sweet, dirty week per year, transformed into a music festival. Well, more than a music festival... Sziget is a parallel word of music and art and culture and people and tents and mud and good clean fun that leaves me pinching myself to think I have really been there and seen that. Thrice.

This was Day Four.

It was also an interesting point in my life and travel. My 'plans' (though I say it laughingly even now, since 'plans' and 'travel' rarely conjunct sweetly) had all gone to utter shit. I was left scratching my head and wondering where to go - the world was my oyster, but on this day the oyster was a bit big and daunting. It happens.

So I had called Mental Health Day... (yeah, you will notice a trend towards these; I highly recommend them). Despite having an island full of madness and a globe full of opportunity, today I decided to call game off, and go to the movies with the girls.

In this instance 'the girls' refers to my childhood friend Brookie (who I was travelling with at the time) and two Dutch girls we had met the day prior at our Sziget hostel, who went on to become my Dutch Angels very soon after and forever since.

It's funny how certain company brings out certain thoughts, certain feelings. Hester and Ines (aforementioned Dutch Angels) met me when I was pretty confused, emotional and vunerable. They are called my Dutch Angels because they were exactly what I needed, exactly when I needed it. And this was the day that sealed the deal - at the end of this very week I literally shrugged and said "Well, if you girls are Dutch, I'm coming to Amsterdam!"

James Redfield's The Celestine Prophecy runs with the idea that nothing is a coincidence, that everything that happens in your life is connected and happens for a reason. Days like this - people like these - leave me tending to see his point.

From the very get-go I remember walking to the Festival, talking intensely with Ines about my very best friend and how much I loved her. Right back then I remember dancing and laughing and smiling with Hester like we had always been pounding dancefloors together in just such a way....

And if I believe that certain people open you up to new depths of feeling, emotion and fun, then I believe it of music in equally potent measure. This night at Sziget was Radiohead.

Now controversally enough, I would never call myself a Radiohead fan. Musically, lyrically, professionally I have admiration and respect for them. Personally, they make me want to cut my wrists. But this night, although I was apparently ignoring the set, I discovered how raw, powerful music takes you with it, whether you want it to or not.

During this set, being treated to The Lightshow Of My Life, I stood at our meeting point bar with Ines, and we poured our hearts out. We had known each other just over 24 hours, and here I was, gazing into this woman's endless dark eyes, and almost crying with the release of the words that were tumbling out of my mouth.

The music, the company, the island, the magic... it brought tingles to my skin and a shortness to my breath. It does even now, just thinking about it.


(Oh, and here are Radiohead's lights, to give you the visual...)

Mental Health Hangover day

Saturday 16th June, 2007

For nearly half a year, I lived in a small Italian Riviera town called San Remo. I went there after my six months in Amsterdam (via a little travel), studied Italian, relaxed, indulged. In fact, I did a whole lot of nothing apart from the language school; it seemed to me that work and an Italian summer were simply incompatible.

There's a great Cat Empire song, the chorus of which rang in my head on this day... "nothing, oh sweet nothing... today we're doing nothing at all"... and I did.

I just recently gotten back from a short jaunt over to fair London town for a gig, and had returned home to my quiet, peaceful, dusty old apartment overlooking the Mediterranean and been treated to a day of summer storms.


I lay in bed, finished one book, read almost all of another one. The rain was monumental. San Remo is trapped between the sea and the Ligurian Mountains, and the storms there are something I will never forget, and always appreciated.

It used to be that I felt bad about doing nothing for a whole day. Being a recovering over-achiever, it used to be that guilt would kick in and I would force myself to do something. Not anymore.

Hehe... it occurs to me that 'nothing' doesn't make for a particularly interesting blog topic, but damn it was a lovely day.