Peaches 'n' Cream..

There's no day for this one. There's no day, but there is a man. And a family. And a song. And a smell.

For some reason today, this humble 'nothing' Friday in Melbourne, I got to be thinking about how some songs have a very distinct smell for me.

Yup, smell.

Yup, I'm insane ;-)

For example, The Killers Mr Brightside smells like an Italian Summer - but that's for another post. The example for this post is Peaches 'n' Cream by John Butler Trio, and how it smells like the Victorian surf coast. Like Home.

But here's the contridiction - it might smell like the surf coast, but it creates a full-fleshed, three dimentional vision of Amsterdam... of my brother Samy... standing in our Flying Pig bar (most probably arm in arm)...



See this wonderful contridictory vision is born of countless nights, days and afternoons where Samy would play me this song. He would fix those deep, intense brother Samy eyes on me, and play me this song. We would sing along together, and my brother Samy would break my poor lil heart there and then - in such sweet ways.

And for all those times when Sam played me this song.. and how I craved and ACHED for this place called home!!.. I stood there in those soft warm walls of that hostel called home, and LONGED for the smell of this other place called home....

Funny how now I listed to this song and long for the flip side of the coin ;-)

Not that I am unsatisfied... not wholly at least.. mostly I am just entertained at my own human nature...

And inspired by the magic of the love of all that we - the 'dam family - found in Amsterdam. It doesn't fade. On the contrary - the more days I live, the older (wiser?!) I get, the more real and beautiful and amazing that Amsterdam family is.

........."there you are... right in front of me.... a brand new day.... sunrise over sea.... no longer, my cup half-empty... coz there you are".......

So much love, guys... Peaches 'n' Cream, and so much love xox

L’Amour Menacant

Sometime in November or December, 2006

Shortly after arriving in Amsterdam, realising I would live largely broke and cold, I invested in a “Museumkaart” – a membership card for Amsterdam’s museums, purchased so that I would have worthwhile entertainment on cold days off when I couldn’t walk in parks.

So we find me, some cold day or another, heading off for the Rijksmuseum… it was just around the corner from work at the Flying Pig, and touted as one of Amsterdam’s finest.

After an entire ground floor of (slightly boring) Dutch empirical paintings of sailboats and bloodshed, I climbed a curving flight of softly polished wooden stairs, and found “L’Amour Menacant”.

I have always preferred sculpture (or photography) to most other art, and this sculpture is an example of one that stopped me dead in my tracks. In the foyer at the top of the stairs I saw this, and PLEASE believe me when I tell you that the picture you are looking at attached to this blog does NOT do it justice.

As soon as I saw it, with outright clarity and a hard beating heart, I thought to myself “oh fuck, that’s the whole fucken point”. And though the realisation challenged me, I thought it happily… especially once I read the encryption on the base.

Here I was, standing staring at a clearly mischievous lil fucker (ie Cupid) ready to reek havoc on all our lives (ie inflict us with Love, god forbid) and I read inscribed on the base the Latin that translates to…. “Whoever you are, I am your master. That I am. That I was. That I will always be.”

And I shit you not, my skin rippled with goosebumps and my heart kinda froze.

It’s a funny thing, the way the Universe chooses to have its way with us on days like this. See, when I arrived at the Rijksmuseum that day, I remember quite clearly selecting Kruder and Dorfmeister’s Sessions 1 & 2 as my soundtrack for the day (drowning out tourists in museums is highly recommended, most especially when you are one of them), but bear with me as to the point…

My friend James has (arguably) been with me through more analysis of Love and Its Great Purpose than any other individual in my life. K&D is irrefutably his soundtrack for me, so before I ever even saw L’Amour Menacant (“Menacing Cupid” it translates to, by the way) he was standing right beside me despite the fact he was actually safely tucked up in Melbourne on the opposite side of the globe at the time.

Lately (as in actually these most recent days and months of my life ‘lately’), I had been craving An Epiphany. This day I am attempting to describe right now was most definitely one.

Coz see there I stood, before this grinning lil fucker (Cupid), with his wry grin that positively screamed “I am about to fuck up your life in ways you never imagined”, and I said to myself all over again with clarity and knowing I had never before experienced – “It’s the whole fucken point.”

Love. Surrender. Surrendering to love. It’s the whole fucken point.

We may like to occupy ourselves and our days with concerns about rent and jobs and superannuation and so on and on and on… but when all that meaningless discourse dies down, and we are left with the actual point for our lives, we find Love.

And staring open-mouthed at L’Amour Menacant made me realise the need – the beauty! – of surrendering to it, to Love.

So, since James was as close to my oracle for this shit as it gets, and he had been with me this day from the outset, I went and bought a postcard featuring the image of cheeky lil Menacing Cupid and filled it with cramped handwriting about theories, fears and beliefs… I tried to capture for him the burning moment of that Epiphany. And I kissed it, and sent it his way.

There is more to say about L’Amour Menacant – about how art intellectuals believe that the artist (Etinenne Falconet) was referring to the Egyptian god Horus when he sculpted Cupid’s fingers to his lips (I have the eye of Horus tattooed on my back, for those who don’t know) – but I think this is enough meaningful Epiphany for one blog, don’t you?!

xox

River walks

Sometimes this stuff just gets me… this missing stuff… knocks me sideways and leaves me panting and crying.

Such was today’s lunchtime walk, when I suddenly found myself overwhelmed with a memory of…

Thursday 12th July 2007

Great things happened this day, and bad things too. It was a dramatic little day that started with a walk along the Po (the river that flows through the charismatic lil city of Torino, in Northern Italy), continued to my one and only pick-pocketing experience, and concluded spectacularly with a Daft Punk gig in a park under a summer night sky.

So perhaps I will come back to parts two and three of this day, since both are full fleshed memories even now, but today I am going to sink into the memory of that morning walk. Mostly because it was the memory of that simple, apparently unremarkable act that so brutally kicked me in the stomach just now as I walked by the river in my ‘home town’.

I remember seeing two turtles sitting on a rock as I wandered the grassy walking path, smiling up at the mountains that hug the city. I remember taking a picture of them – most probably because it was (fortuitously) the only image on my memory card when my camera was taken later that day in the aforementioned pick-pocketing incident. I remember a lady walking a whole troupe of Golden Retrievers and how the sight of them made me feel waves of familiarity (I had two retrievers growing up). I remember a general soft wave of familiarity for being in Torino at all, since I had been there exactly a year before for the Traffic music festival as well, and recalled lil things like where the internet café was and where not to eat.

And I remember how it feels to be in Italy… in Europe in general. It isn’t a feeling I can describe (it certainly isn’t logical) but it is this weighty contented sense of adventure and spirit that is just… there – just there when I am shopping for groceries, just there when I am drinking my coffee, just there when I am walking the rivers or streets.

Today the lack of this feeling hit me so suddenly, so unexpectedly, that I literally broke into spontaneous tears. I miss how it FEELS to be in Italy, miss it so much that this apparent substitute of Melbourne just seems… empty.

But it’s not. I’m just feeling dramatic today ;-)

Guess I broke my own rule about nostalgic reflections since this is really about today, but thems are my rules and I’ll do what I want with em.

(Oh, and I can’t post the picture of the turtles since the F#$KERS stole my camera, but I can see them if I close my eyes…..)

With editor's approval and love beyond words xox

Saturday 19th July, 2008

A few things happened on this day, but it was the last moment of a long day where it bumped into the next one that I most want to share.

We were in Novi Sad, in the north of Serbia, and 'we' is myself and this redhead goddess Imogen I have mentioned but not named in previous ramblings. We had just reunited for and survived the Exit festival in that same town, and had decided to succumb to being stuck there for the time being.

So cool things had happened - I'd wandered around town with a Serbian friend (aka man mountain) Dule, to find us an apartment... I'd been spoiled with homemade sarma (cabbage roll heaven) and raikia (even better!)... We'd laughed hysterically as a grown man on rollerblades had attempted to woo Imogen, headband and all... We'd been entertained and supervised and questioned and taught by these amazing Serbian men we found friendships with in this pastel coloured lil town.

Somehow at about 7am two "big anglo chicks" (as Imogen likes to refer to any white woman over 5'6" who isn't waif-like) end up in the one hostel bunk, drunk and giggly, talking utter sh!t like teenagers on a slumber party, generally indulging in each other's company. I'd been away more than two years, and apart from a brief visit home which kinda just made it more apparent, we had felt the lack of each other.

Imogen is frighteningly intelligent, madly articulate, unsettlingly intuitive... great qualities but also ones that bring her unstuck at times. See, when she gave me a bit of "Oh I told you I kissed him once, right?" about a man who was once my sun and my moon, I couldn't help feeling like she knew she was spitting it out at just the right time, accidentally on purpose, when it would hardly touch the sides.

Coz of course it didn't, and remembering this moment makes me smile like a fool - me laughing and smacking her repeatedly over the head with an empty water bottle saying "OF - COURSE - YOU - KNOW - YOU - DIDN'T - TELL - ME - THAT - BIATCH!"... her ducking her gorgeous red curls and spitting back "hey, it's not like you haven't done it to me, hey stop!!"... me "THAT'S - NOT - THE - POINT - mwaHAHAHAHA!"... laughing. Both screaming laughing.

God this woman makes me laugh, makes people laugh. So we laughed, I stopped belting her, we got up and went down the street for pizza slices in our jamies amongst 7am commuters to continue the banter, eventually slept, and I imagine we got up and did it all again the next day.

I miss her so much - she took the gypsy baton and stayed in Europe, and leaves but a pathetically slight trail of blog posts in her wake (clear dig xox)... but I imagine I'll find her somewhere again someday.

Safe journey Beautiful. Keep laughing xox