Things you probably don’t know about me.

I have a million blog posts floating around in my pretty-little-head, all of which are too introspective, profound or unformed at this point for me to write articulately about. So I figured I would write the least profound post that is in me to write – a little about me.

1. I am getting married ridiculously soon.
2. I am not a morning person. I am definitely a night owl.
3. In fact when left entirely to my own devices with no responsibilities I wake at 11am and sleep at 4am.
4. No one has ever figured out what colour my eyes are. Blue, green, blue-green or blue-grey.
5. I make pretty shit-hot brownies. Over the weekend a naked man told me so. Really.
6. I will do pretty much anything for honey saffron chocolates.
7. Diets don’t work for me. My body and I are on much better terms when I respect and fuel her.
8. I used to sing. I wasn’t half bad either.
9. The song I sing most now is twinkle twinkle.
10. As hard as I try I simply cannot understand men.
11. Anything I can’t understand bugs hell out of me.
12. I swear entirely too much. So I cringe now that my son has reached the mimicking phase.
13. I have studied mediumship, seership and card reading. Not kidding.
14. I started meditating just after I turned 15.
15. A decade of meditation has mellowed me, but I still have quite a temper when you get me mad.
16. I don’t hold grudges. But I learn my lesson.
17. I used to have a side of the bed… now so long as I have a comfy pillow I’m happy.
18. I can rock hats, sunnies and fascinators, but I find it hard to find shoes to suit my feet.
19. My phone is perpetually nearly flat. I can’t work out if that is because I use to so much or if I don’t charge my phone often enough.
20. I am like Sheldon when it comes to my seat on the couch.
21. I am a sucker for tattoos (tasteful), facial hair (stylish stubble or a sexy beard) and strong hands.
22. I have worn fishnets, wings, a dog collar and a halo. But not all at once. And not all for fancy dress.
23. My favourite piece of fashion are my pink pumps. I love them so much I am wearing them to my wedding.
24. I have scars, stretch marks and a ‘cherry spot’ birth mark.
25. I have sucked snot from my sick infants nose, and yet olives still make me gag.
26. I have one younger sister and two girlfriends I would fly to their side anywhere in the world if they asked.
27. So, I kind of have 3 sisters.
28. I was born on the same day (not year) as Audrey Hepburn.
29. The simplest things soothe my soul. The sound and smell of the beach, rain, a full moon, a gentle kiss, a cup of tea, a great song.
30. I love quotes. These are my current faves:

• • A woman can say more in a sigh than a man can say in a sermon. ~Arnold Haultain
  • Never grow a wishbone, daughter, where your backbone ought to be. ~ Clementine Paddelford
  • A woman who cannot be ugly is not beautiful. ~Karl Kraus

Landslide…

If you are anything like me when the going gets tough you get tea, ice cream and your favourite song. This song has soothed my frayed nerves as I approached and crossed the boundaries of my comfort zone again and again. So it is no shock to me that I crave it now (along with Magnums and sweet tea) as I am super-fast approaching my nuptials.

The power of lyrics has always moved me. Great lyrics move me as much as Shakespeare and Eliot. The readings at our upcoming wedding are lyrics and my favourite poem by Donne and choosing songs for the ceremony took far more deliberation than my outfit. Such is the importance I place on heartfelt lyrics. I have no idea what inspired Stevie to write Landslide, but I have interpreted it to relate to parenthood, partnership, womanhood, teenage fears, friendship over the course of my love affair with it. Like a pair of comfy jeans or an old friend, it comforts me because we have known each other for the longest time. (I am certain my mother listened to this song when I was in the womb.)

This song, to me, speaks to love. Real love. Deep love. The deepest love. The kind that scares you to your very core. The kind of love that makes you not want to move a muscle in-case you break the spell. The kind of love that threatens to paralyse you. It talks about the complications that love can pose and the difficulties you are bound to face together. It talks about how we define ourselves by who loves us, and how well we love them back. Of the landslide of emotion that threatens to overwhelms us, that we pray we can withstand.

I hope you like it half as much as I do. Landslide, Stevie Nicks.

I took my love and I took it down

I climbed a mountain and I turned around

And I saw my reflection in the snow-covered hills

Well the landslide brought me down

Oh, mirror in the sky what is love

Can the child within my heart rise above

Can I sail through the changing ocean tides

Can I handle the seasons of my life

Well, I’ve been afraid of changing ’cause I built my life around you

But time makes you bolder, Children get older

I’m getting older too

Well, I’ve been afraid of changing ’cause I built my life around you

But time makes you bolder, Children get older

I’m getting older, too. Well I’m getting older too

So, take this love and take it down

Year and if you climb a mountain and ya turn around

And if you see my reflection in the snow-covered hills

Well the landslide brought me down

And if you see my reflection in the snow-covered hills

Well maybe, Well maybe

Maybe the landslide will bring you down

Collective magic

The music building to a crescendo. Thousands of hands meeting in unison. The clapping creating a deep bass drum rhythm that somehow links us all.

The same is possible with dance. With celebration. With mourning. Solidarity

These are the great levelers of the human experience. In these experiences we can forego our personal identity and feel at one with thousands of strangers. These experiences change us. It always feels as though a little part of my defenses, my separateness, is lost after a ‘group moment’.

These times remind me, I like to think, of how we could relate to humanity. If we just let ourselves. They remind me of a better way.

Bless our musicians, our sports heroes, our leaders, our idols who can precipitate such events. Perhaps they hold a key to a more peaceful planet.

You gotta have soul

I love music. Pretty much all music. Well most, anyway. (Rap and death metal being two exceptions). My music collection spans the Crooners of the 1940′s to current pop stylings of Pink. I love rock and punk, folk and even some country. You’ll often hear my radio tuned to jazz, but acoustic rock and gospel are probably the two genres that really make my heart sing.

For years I have been ashamed to admit some of my favourite songs and totally baffled as to how the music of the day (presumably my day) doesn’t click with me. I know I will cop some flack for saying this (translation form Aussie slang I’ll get shit for saying this) but so much of today’s music lacks soul. There I said it. And I’m willing to defend it, too.

Now before I totally betray the musicians of today, of which many are outstanding artists, I should put this all in context. Music is a transformative medium. It has been used in rituals for worship, healing, and celebration in every culture all throughout history. Music has fueled many a revolution and moved listeners to feel the full gamut of emotion.

Herein lies my disappointment; the music of my generation doesn’t really (collectively) say all that much. And a lot of what it says I don’t want to hear. Case in point David Guetta’s “Sexy Bitch”. Oh please, the least disrespectful thing you can use to describe her is ‘sexy bitch’? Give me a break.

There will always be the trashy light music of the day thats purpose is solely to provide entertainment and enjoyment. Think disco and dance music. But the popular music of a time really interprets and reflects the happenings of the day. Our music reflects only personal dramas. Personal triumphs. Personal pain. The closest we have to anthems for a generation are Green Day Time of your life, Tomorrow by Silverchair, Dammit by Blink 182 or Crazy by Gnarles Barkley. Which pale in comparison to Queen, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Sex Pistols & Nirvana who championed generations before.

Pink has tried with Mr. President. John Butler Trio put in a good effort. Jack Johnson even writes about recycling. The Black Eye Peas manage to have a point while they inspire our ‘good night’s out, but they alone cannot breathe fire into the hearts of a generation. Our artists may not have a civil rights movement or the Vietnam war to draw on like the heroes of the 60′s and 70′s. We may not be fighting the establishment as we did with the birth of punk in the 70′s and 80′s. But you cannot tell me that when Rap and Hip hop came to the fore in the 80′s and 90′s that our rock and folk artists lost the ability to inspire us. Or that we live in a Utopian society with nothing to inspire them.

Thank heavens for Coldplay, U2, The Killers, Green Day, Foo Fighters for the soul they inject into a seemingly shallow industry at times. Let us hope they are still rocking on in 30 years time like their forefathers Dylan, Cohen and Cash all who had albums feature in the top 100 albums of the 00′s.

Please prove me and my (secretly folk loving) musical heart wrong. What are the anthems of our (Gen Y) generation? Who is still flying the flag and writing to inspire us all?

Jack’s Back

John Farnham just announced another tour. Now I know that there have been varying reactions to this; his biggest fans are elated that his ‘Last Time’ tour wasn’t the last time at all and a former fan is making claims of misrepresentation. It’s all a result of his very short set at sound relief. Which, come to think of it, made me cry.

I’ll set the scene:

Chicken (my baby) is in his highchair eating lunch. Sweet potato spread from his eyebrows to his nappy. Sound relief on the radio. Coldplay and Farnsy performing ‘You’re the voice’.

I flash back to dancing around the living room with my Mum and sister as a kid to the Whispering Jack album.

Chicken raises his little hands into the air asking to be picked up. Moments later we are dancing around the living room together. He starts singing, remarkably in tune for a little tyke.

A tear rolls down my cheek as I realize it has come full circle. (Or perhaps as I realize that I’m turning into my mother.) I know deep in my bones that I’ll do everything I can to prevent my son every looking at anyone ‘down the barrel of a gun’.