Kookaburra friends

Grateful For

This week I am grateful for the almost lost art of letter writing.

For boxes full of old letters and notes and photos and  the places those memories can transport us.

For the interconnectedness of our past and present and future as told through the trinkets collected along our path.

Read here for more.

Have a lovely Weekend.

This is a part of something altogether much grander, please check it out at Maxbella Loves.

Box of history.

I found something in the garage the other day.  It stopped me in my tracks.  A mighty can of worms.  Not the slimy dirt pooing kind of worms.  But rather like a bag of those brightly coloured sweet and sour candy worms.  Too hard to resist for their promise of pure sugary indulgence, and highly addictive for that exploding sensation of pleasure and pain that unleashes itself upon the taste buds.

A treasure trove of nostalgia right there in a shiny silver box.  Every letter ever written to me by anyone of note in my life (and in fact many of a little less note too).  The good, the bad and the ugly.  There are all sorts in this box.  Mouth wateringly alluring, and addictive once you start.

Why I have kept hold of some of this stuff I really don't know , but I was certainly glad to see them all the same.  These things have a power to transport us back to a time and a place.  To ignite old feelings and dangerous amounts of sentimentality.  A friend said to me today: We are the sum of all we have ever known and been.  And here in this box are many clues to who I am and who I have been and who perhaps I will be.

There are notes that were passed to me in the back of class at high school whilst the teacher attended more dedicated students.

One of my most prized letters from school is this one.

I think I might frame it one day.  It is from the Head Mistress at my private girls high school.  It was my life's obsession at the time to make regular yet subtle jabs at the establishment and my uniform provided the perfect vehicle.  I am so glad I have a letter to prove my success.

I have letters from my Mum written throughout the teenage years.  Clearly the only way she could communicate with me.  I treasure them now, although I am sure at the time I tossed them aside in disdain.  Perhaps I can draw on a little of her wisdom through these letters when it comes to dealing with my own teenagers.

I have kept all manner of silly little notes from my flatmates after I left home.

And of course quite a few love notes and letters too.

All the years I spent in Europe during my twenties (the 90's) are marked with letters from friends and family.  Some written in curly artful fonts and others with drawings and photos included.

 

How much time and effort went into writing a letter,  into making it a piece of art, into something you want to keep forever?  I am astounded now by all the beautiful things people have written to me over the years.  Of all the stories of adventure and love and disaster held upon those pages.  All crafted by the hand, straight from the heart. 

Brad found a similar box of his own.  And we sat there side by side, silently emerged in our worlds.  How quickly life has changed over the last decade.   I no longer have a box for letters, purely as I do not receive them.  There is something really quite intrinsically sad about that.  The loss of this beautiful art form.

A favourite story Brad likes to tell, to anyone who will listen, is of his time as a backpacker in Europe and receiving mail via Poste Restante .  Arriving in Rome and locating the main post office to find you had mail waiting.  How romantic that sounds now.  Back then it was the only way to receive messages from home.

How about those light weight air mail letters that came already stamped.  You'd spend a day or two in various bars and cafes watching the world go by whilst drafting the words in your head.  Then using the teeniest script you could manage you'd fill up the pages with as much information as possible.  It could take a few days to write a good letter, it was a timely and creative pursuit.  I think about travellers today all crammed into Internet cafes connecting through the screen via short tweets and quickly typed out messages. It's a different world.

My relationship with Brad started with letters.  We'd been friends at Uni and he wrote to me on his first European adventure.  The occasional postcard.   

Much later when he returned and we lived in different states, we would write to each other regularly, it was our only communication.  It now seems an utterly romantic old-school kind of  courtship.   They weren't really love letters because we weren't really in love then. But I think we really wanted to be in love and therefore the letters were some kind of a test.  A test of each others intelligence and our skills in esotericisim.  

They were just as much fun to read and decipher as they were to write.  I am glad I still have them.

As we both sat on the floor of our garage immersed in our history, reminiscing the memories and enjoying the very tangible remnants of the life we've lived,  it occurred to us that our children may never have this privilege.  Never know how to really write a letter, nor the excitement and anticipation of receiving one.  What a terrible shame that will be.

Do you keep your old letters? 

Adventure is Life

When I left London in July 2009 it was dramatic to say the least.  I don't think it was unexpected but it was certainly fraught with concern.  A broken marriage and an uncertain future.  I hope the next exit is a little more graceful.

I watched as my house, my family home, was packaged into 72 pieces of freight.  Bound for Australia.  A land abounding in natures gifts, of beauty rich and rare, with golden soil and wealth for toil.  Home after 8 years in Europe.

We left Sydney in early 2002 with 2 suitcases and a 14 month old baby boy.  We took off on an adventure telling our family and friends we didn't know how long we'd be, could be 3 months could be 3 years, we said.

We spent the first year in Majorca, an island off the coast of Spain.  It was a magical year.  I like to say we did that thing people dream about doing when they retire, except we did it whilst we were young and vibrant and full of spirit.  We rented a beautiful apartment in the old Gothic centre of Palma de Majorca.  The Gothic part of Majorca is one of the best preserved in Europe as it did not experience any bombings during the wars.  The apartment was in fact a spacious studio furnished very simply.

Studio interior

The tiles were over 200 years old.  It had 3 french doors that opened overlooking a square with a fountain and a number of little bars and cafes on the edges.  Little Jack would spend hours peering out  over this scene from the balcony.  

balcony looking towards Gothic Church

Ours was the only apartment in the building.  After struggling with the original heavy wooden door, we had to climb an old winding stone staircase to reach our apartment on the 3rd floor.  It was really very charming, if a tad exhausting especially with an armful of shopping and toddler.  On the top floor was a terrace that enjoyed views across the rooftops of Palma and terrific sunsets.

Jack in the Plaza Mayor early one Sunday

An idyllic year in Majorca.  Sometimes I worked for the local film studio producing commercials for companies from all over Europe.  Other days we'd go to the beach or explore.  Brad, who at the time didn't have a European passport nor could he speak Spanish, spent his days with young Jack and developing his photography.  He'd shop at the local produce markets each morning and make delicious simple meals in the evenings. 

Meals were often shared with our friends late into the night, in true Spanish spirit, followed by endless rounds of cards.  There was an all night bakery just down our street where the baker also sold wine and beer and cigarettes (and we suspect a few other things).  We were some of his best midnight customers.

The weather turned and my work slowed down and we decided to take a look at big scary London town.  Brad was itching to work.  We arrived on New Years day 2003.  Brad got work straight away and I reluctantly agreed to stay for 5 months.  I was pregnant with Lucien and I didn't fancy having a baby in London.  I'd been there in my early 20's and it was a struggle, I'd hated it.

For the first 2 months the three of us shared a double bed in a mate's house out near Heathrow.  I remember lying in that bed looking out the window as the jumbos lined up to land, wheels out like giant bird claws ready to grip the earth.  It snowed.  Each day we'd trudge into the centre and scour for a place of our own.  It was really rather miserable.  But an adventure all the same.

Eventually we found a great flat in Islington.  Top floors, sunny and bright.  Brad got more and more work.  The spring buds started to emerge and the sun shone occasionally.  The city was alive.  A hub of culture and art and new discoveries.  Life was good.  I decided to have my baby in London.  It ended up being one of the hottest summers on record.

Seven years went by and with them brought another baby, our darling little girl Suki.  We made many wonderful new friends and we bought a house.  We travelled around Europe and made several trips back home.

Our house in winter

Our garden in the summer

It was a struggle living off one wage.  But we managed somehow.  Then I lost my Mum in 2004.  The phone call you hope you'll never receive when you are away from home.  After returning to Australia for a brief stay we went back to London.  It was home.  I was supported by friends and wrapped up my wounds in the anonymity of big city life.  London was my Mum's town too.  So I weirdly felt closer to her living that life.

A favourite photo of Mum in Trafalgar Square

However, over all those years we always struggled with our position in London.  We struggled with calling it home.  Like a broken record we'd discuss where we wanted to be, where we ought to be, where we could be.  Eventually we saw a life coach.  Amongst many of the things I quote from that meeting she said we had to choose a hemisphere and stick with it, because if you don't make roots then you never live your life fully in the place you are.  We had made roots without even realising.

Things stand out to me now which offer up some clues.  We'd often spend weekends away in Devon.  We'd usually drive back to London at night to avoid the traffic and let the kids sleep.  When I'd see the big road signs lit up with our headlights,  I always felt a great sense of excitement that we were going to LONDON, and that was our home.

Sidmouth, Devon

But I struggled with an unhappiness exacerbated by grief and post natal depression.  I blamed the environment, the cold, the grey.  It's true these things don't help but it was deeper than that.  And when we feel so broken we want to go home, to the place we feel nurtured.  Back into Mother's arms.

South Coast, NSW

The beauty rich and rare has been a great help.  A big blue sky can make a huge difference to how you approach the world.  Wealth for toil.  Well yeah.  It's been hard work to be sure.  I do feel wealthier in spirit.  Restored.  The kids have been able to know what it means to be Australian.  Maybe it's a curse we are bestowing upon them also, this heart in two places thing.  I like to think however, that they are lucky.  They know a lot about the world already.  From Europe they came here.  The peaceful small beach community.    But they will also know a busier life where many cultures mix and anything is possible.

We'll go back to London later this year.  I don't think it is our permanent place.  In fact I am not sure we have one of those.  I now think that this is us.  Hearts and feet in different places.  Global wanderers.  We'll be back in Australia.  Maybe sooner rather that later.  Nothing in life is permanent. We only have this moment to enjoy.  And what is life without adventure?

What's with the Kookaburras?

Travelling up to Sydney from the south coast of NSW, my Mother and I stopped into an antique warehouse in the charming township of Bowral in the Southern Highlands.  I share my Mother's love of old things, antique jewellery was her passion. She'd once had an antique jewellery business, Greentree Antiques,  housed in a corner of an old theatre in Windsor.  A cavernous and magical place filled to the brim with the most fascinating objects.  A place you could spend hours and still not feel like you'd seen it all.  My sister and I would get lost in that theatre during school holidays.  Upstairs there was an area which was off limits to the public to house the overflowing horde.  It was, of course, the most intruiging place of all.  There was a heavy dusty theatre curtain that drapped across the stairwell to stop customers going up.  We would sneak up there whilst nobody was looking and spend hours trawling through boxes and admiring obscure curiosities.  It was here we once happened accross a box of vintage erotic photography.  We'd never seen anything like it in our lives, little eyes popped out of their heads, we swore ourselves to secrecy and emerged unusually sheepish from our regular adventures.  That old school erotica is still so much more exciting than the modern adaptions.  It was an era when less was more, the imagination was allowed to create the fantasy.

That day, with my Mother in Bowral, was probably the last time we mooched about an antique shop together.  Some months later she was gone.  I'd been searching for little bits of Australiana to take home to London, it had been the general theme of my holiday purchases.  It was in that antique warehouse in Bowral that I came across an old painting of three kookaburras sitting on the branch of a gumtree.  A little rough and a little damaged but framed in a beautifully carved wooden frame.  I fell in love with its rustic Australian charm and had to have it to brighten the walls of my dark basement flat in London.  It would be a little reminder of our sunny roots.  Mum had always been a brilliant business woman, clever and charismatic, I called in her help to negotiate a good deal.

That painting has adorned my walls ever since.  It's a symbol of so much more to me now than my Australian heritage.  It represents family and memories, respecting the past and taking care of the future.

The kookaburra is a family orientated bird living in small units with the older generations taking care of the youngest.  The famous kookaburra laugh is both a greeting and a territorial warning, but once one group starts off it seems the whole neighborhood will join in, often just as the sun is rising or setting.  I like to think that both ends of their day are marked by this calling to one and other, a good belly laugh enjoyed with family and friends.

Where I currently live in Australia we have a family of kookaburras in our backyard, they seem so confidently assured and majestic in their domain and I feel somehow that we have become a part of their family too, so intently they keep watch over us.

So why have I called my blog Kookaburra Laugh?  I felt like life with a family of my own was constantly throwing up a variety of amusing and often challenging situations.  At the end of the day it's often a case of: if you don't laugh, you'll cry.  I prefer to take a leaf out of the kookaburra's book.