e·clipse (-klps)
n.
1.
a. The partial or complete obscuring, relative to a designated observer, of one celestial body by another.
b. The period of time during which such an obscuration occurs.
2. A temporary or permanent dimming or cutting off of light.
I’m jumping across time with this one, because I’m going back to an eclipse gone-by as a result of an eclipse this very night. And because I’m a word nerd, I thought I’d throw in some definitive perspective… (probably also because I’m a nerd for definitive perspective, in those brief moments when she raises her pretty head).
I was at Sziget, that magical Hungarian island home of music festival goodness. Sziget 2008 marked my third in three years, and I can honestly tell you my desire for completing that hatrick was one of the things that got me through some challenging travel times of that year.
Much of the crew I was with that year had been before, but amongst the new faces was my friend Imogen and her daughter/my friend Cohen. Coh was something of my festival partner in crime that week, and this day we ventured in early together through the sweltering Hungarian summer heat, wandered theatre stages, chatted calming chatter, drank coffee, chilled…
Sziget is as much theatre as it is disco, as much chill-out as it is go-hard. Sziget is what you make of it. Sziget, my friends, is all things. And this year, Sziget was proving a touch tough for lil ol’ me.
b. The period of time during which such an obscuration occurs.
See, emotional pain can be as obscuring as any celestial being… if not more so, one might suggest. I found or created or encountered (or all three?!) some emotional pain on that island that year, and as is so often the case, the phases of the moon (and the buckets of long island iced tea) had a way of highlighting it…
But I was never sad this day... I was overwhelmed. I was delusional. I was reverberating with good and bad and beauty and fear. But I was never sad.
Who can be sad when there’s Vietnamese Water Puppet theatre, and the New York SKA Jazz Ensemble, and Roisin Murphy (with her honestly perfect boobs!), and Maceo Parker?!
Oh Maceo, where had you been all my life?? When did jazz hit so deep and put such a smile on my face that my cheeks hurt, such bounce in my feet that I dance til I’m dripping?!
And after Maceo’s set, in the soft enveloping black warmth of a Hungarian summer night, I literally watch the lunar eclipse above me... See the light of the moon phase away and back again above me, with the return of its rays beaming as cool and bright as the sun might warm and strong…
Tonight in Melbourne there’s another full moon and lunar eclipse. They don’t come along so often, and I nearly always find something significant goes down at that time. But tonight’s forecast for Rebecca promises to be quiet and relaxed… I wonder what she really has in store for me…
Monday, December 20, 2010
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Actually now
In a complete diversion from the whole premise of this blog, I'm going to actually write about today...
Today is the fifteenth of June, 2010.
Today was the recovery BBQ of a wedding I MC'ed on the eleventh. I was tired. I was fairly hungover. I struggled. I can't lie; I nearly didn't make it. But I got there and I'm glad I did; as awesome as the wedding was, today was the day to be there for our bride and groom when they could relax and enjoy.
But the reason I want to talk about "actually now" is that I'm going home - I'm going back to Europe. Tomorrow. Wow.
And it occurs to me that I'm almost as nervous as I am excited. Not nervous for all those logistical maybes that can go wrong; nervous to catch a glimpse of myself through the eyes of the great friends I'll see there, and see who I am today compared to then.
I went corporate. The lil bit fat, relaxed open gypsy settled back into her suits and worked like crazy for the last eighteen months. And I proper enjoyed it. But that's ended now, and being presented with the opportunity to take the break abroad, it seemed a sound decision - obligations aside.
So Wednesday I'll arrive in the city I called home for more time than any other outside of Melbourne; Amsterdam. I'm over people thinking that those of us who know and love Amsterdam only love her for "the green" - I'll go on the record here and now to say I don't smoke, I've never done so, and it doesn't suit me in the slightest. But this city is so much more than redlights and coffee shops - it's art, freedom, intelligence. It's a strangely cramped lil city that feels like the bookshelf of a dusty library, crammed tight with too many books so that they can't stand up straight. It's more comforting than I ever imagined it could be.
Because there I will find some friends who I've never lost, but almost constantly missed. And I'm curious to see them, and have them see me. As I said, excited and nervous in almost equal measure.
But it's time to bring together the hardworking professional that Melbourne has seen for the last couple of years, and the vagabond gypsy that came before her. It's time to stand those two women in the same room within me, and see where the dust settles. It's time to be with my people.
Today is the fifteenth of June, 2010.
Today was the recovery BBQ of a wedding I MC'ed on the eleventh. I was tired. I was fairly hungover. I struggled. I can't lie; I nearly didn't make it. But I got there and I'm glad I did; as awesome as the wedding was, today was the day to be there for our bride and groom when they could relax and enjoy.
But the reason I want to talk about "actually now" is that I'm going home - I'm going back to Europe. Tomorrow. Wow.
And it occurs to me that I'm almost as nervous as I am excited. Not nervous for all those logistical maybes that can go wrong; nervous to catch a glimpse of myself through the eyes of the great friends I'll see there, and see who I am today compared to then.
I went corporate. The lil bit fat, relaxed open gypsy settled back into her suits and worked like crazy for the last eighteen months. And I proper enjoyed it. But that's ended now, and being presented with the opportunity to take the break abroad, it seemed a sound decision - obligations aside.
So Wednesday I'll arrive in the city I called home for more time than any other outside of Melbourne; Amsterdam. I'm over people thinking that those of us who know and love Amsterdam only love her for "the green" - I'll go on the record here and now to say I don't smoke, I've never done so, and it doesn't suit me in the slightest. But this city is so much more than redlights and coffee shops - it's art, freedom, intelligence. It's a strangely cramped lil city that feels like the bookshelf of a dusty library, crammed tight with too many books so that they can't stand up straight. It's more comforting than I ever imagined it could be.
Because there I will find some friends who I've never lost, but almost constantly missed. And I'm curious to see them, and have them see me. As I said, excited and nervous in almost equal measure.
But it's time to bring together the hardworking professional that Melbourne has seen for the last couple of years, and the vagabond gypsy that came before her. It's time to stand those two women in the same room within me, and see where the dust settles. It's time to be with my people.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Two years ago today...
21st May, 2008
I don't even know what this day was yet - haven't checked the trusty nokia diary - but I feel like writing so writing has begun...
This day two years ago saw the end of my two weeks traveling Spain with a beautiful friend of mine from back home. We were in Barcelona, which he would make his base for the subsequent summer, and I would fly off to here n there as my gypsy summer continued.
Thing is with this boy, though I love him so incredibly much it's with with nothing but love that I say it - he's difficult. OK OK I don't help things, but he is.
And isn't it funny how the end of something is so often the most difficult time?! Even something as lovely as this lil jaunt together had been. So often it's the closing moments of something that brings emotion and vulnerability to the surface - where it firmly overtakes anything like logic or sanity ;-)
I've been thinking lately - as in over these last days - how the humdrum of daily life masks the impact of existential crises that travel brings up. The good ones, the bad ones... though this day two years ago wasn't that, and oddly this day today might be - so it seems I've just contradicted myself... Anyhow, moving on. Or back. Ahh whatever...
So two years ago today I was wandering the streets of Barcelona, essentially avoiding my beautiful but moody friend because the ending of our trip had brought us to the edge of our nerves for each other.
Instead I played with a spunky lil Argentinian pocket-rocket named Cici - we escaped the hostel for a lil piazza (Italian I know, but how I call them) and talked girly talk like body image and boys. It was awesome. It was an antidote to two weeks of boy time where he and i had both probably felt almost everything, but said absolutely nothing ;-)
Cici gave me a parting gift - a little anklet with bells on, that were legend to be the sound of tiny guardian angels to take care of me. I wore it for a long time after and still have it.
THIS is the stuff that matters.. these moments in piazzas with distant friends who invest in you the kind of faith you just need to hear every now and then. THESE are the times we should all remember and focus on - these tiny lil innocuous moments with the smell of a foreign city in your lungs and strange singing accents in your ears. THAT is the stuff I am focusing on today - as in this day right here.. it isn't much, but it helps :-)
I don't even know what this day was yet - haven't checked the trusty nokia diary - but I feel like writing so writing has begun...
This day two years ago saw the end of my two weeks traveling Spain with a beautiful friend of mine from back home. We were in Barcelona, which he would make his base for the subsequent summer, and I would fly off to here n there as my gypsy summer continued.
Thing is with this boy, though I love him so incredibly much it's with with nothing but love that I say it - he's difficult. OK OK I don't help things, but he is.
And isn't it funny how the end of something is so often the most difficult time?! Even something as lovely as this lil jaunt together had been. So often it's the closing moments of something that brings emotion and vulnerability to the surface - where it firmly overtakes anything like logic or sanity ;-)
I've been thinking lately - as in over these last days - how the humdrum of daily life masks the impact of existential crises that travel brings up. The good ones, the bad ones... though this day two years ago wasn't that, and oddly this day today might be - so it seems I've just contradicted myself... Anyhow, moving on. Or back. Ahh whatever...
So two years ago today I was wandering the streets of Barcelona, essentially avoiding my beautiful but moody friend because the ending of our trip had brought us to the edge of our nerves for each other.
Instead I played with a spunky lil Argentinian pocket-rocket named Cici - we escaped the hostel for a lil piazza (Italian I know, but how I call them) and talked girly talk like body image and boys. It was awesome. It was an antidote to two weeks of boy time where he and i had both probably felt almost everything, but said absolutely nothing ;-)
Cici gave me a parting gift - a little anklet with bells on, that were legend to be the sound of tiny guardian angels to take care of me. I wore it for a long time after and still have it.
THIS is the stuff that matters.. these moments in piazzas with distant friends who invest in you the kind of faith you just need to hear every now and then. THESE are the times we should all remember and focus on - these tiny lil innocuous moments with the smell of a foreign city in your lungs and strange singing accents in your ears. THAT is the stuff I am focusing on today - as in this day right here.. it isn't much, but it helps :-)
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