Our neighbors had some workmen (“tradies”) install a pergola this week.
They spent two days working with a radio station playing early 2000s music in the background, one of them belting out the occasional lyric. Between Bowling for Soup’s 1985 and Metro Station’s Shake It, part of me worked hard not to instantly be transported back to high school, and part of me wondered idly when these tunes became “oldies.”
It’s wild how music can bring you right back to another time and place—and how that time and place can feel like a completely different life.
The Victoria who had Plain White T’s Hey There Delilah crooning through the speakers of her car on the way home from her after-school job at Hallmark would not have believed where she would be fifteen years from that moment. It reminds me that some transitions, like graduations or new jobs, are clear-cut while others are more subtle and gradual. You look up one day and realize that despite everything, the landscape has changed.
And the landscape is certainly changing again—both metaphorically and literally.
My walks down to the river now include these bright pops of red from the coral trees lining the streets and parts of the shoreline. I’ve obviously only seen these deciduous trees with their leaves back in March, and then with naked branches for most of the winter, so their chili-pepper-shaped blossoms were an unexpected surprise. I stood in the sunshine and watched the myriad of bees and birds that the flowers are attracting for quite a while (including the Rainbow Lorikeet pictured below).
On Thursday, I had a big solo adventure. Thanks to a gentle and much-needed nudge from Katie, I took Edna (the car) on the highway for the first time. I stopped at an art supply store to finally replace the items I had had to leave behind in New Hampshire, then to a shopping center to run some errands. After, I took myself on a date to order my own bag of popcorn and see the new Barbie movie.
Perhaps due to the cultural hype or my lack of research beforehand, I honestly wasn’t expecting to really like it. I definitely didn’t expect it to make me cry. But it did…and more than once.
There’s a high chance that I’m being overly sentimental, so if you’ve seen the movie and have no idea why it made me cry, or if you have zero intention of ever watching it, no offense taken. In his book The Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafón writes “…a book is a mirror that offers us only what we already carry inside us…”
As a bookworm, I’m biased towards reading, but I would argue that the above statement could be amended from “a book” to “story.” I’ve always found that great stories—whether they be books, films, or any other storytelling art—have a knack for finding me at just the right time. They come with messages, feelings, emotions, lessons, or ideas communicated in just the right way to help me make sense of my own world and experience. I’m not so naive as to think I’m the only person who feels this way, which is why I think storytelling is such a beautiful form of magic. If it’s the right story at the right time, it can help us to connect with this human experience at a deeper level. And as strange as it might sound to some, that’s what Barbie did for me on Thursday.
All of that aside, my solo date/adventure may seem rather simple. I had no problem jumping in the car and driving down the highway in the rain to run errands back home, but here it has felt incredibly difficult. The sense of freedom and independence that this act brought to me on Friday (along with the experience of the movie) was exactly what I needed.
This past weekend was chock-full of sports. I know I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again—Australians LOVE their sports. I had no idea how deeply engrained sports are in Australian culture (and this is coming from an American who is aware of how deeply engrained they are in her own).
It started on Saturday with Tim’s second-to-last hockey game. He returned home with a fractured left middle finger and an early end to his season. 😔
The Women’s World Cup has been a huge focus here right now, so we watched The Matildas (the Australian women’s soccer team) win their match in the late afternoon. This brought on great excitement, as the women’s team has never advanced to the semi-finals. Straight after the game, we hustled down the street and onto a bus that brought us to Optus Stadium for a footie match.
It’s safe to say I’ve partaken in enough sports watching to last me a while, which is why I respectfully opted out of the footie watching on Sunday (it’s almost “Grand Final” (Superbowl) season here).
Still missing you all very much and sending heaps of love. May something connect you to your own internally or externally shifting landscape this week. Xo
I know it can be difficult. The last Little Women I watched had Winona Ryder in it. I received the library notice you sent. Thanks
Nostalgia is powerful. It can be painful and joyous at the same time. When you experience it, particularly when those you once loved but are now gone visit you in a night or daydream, you pray for the dream to linger. Other memories you push away harshly or at least I do. But what makes nostalgia special is that it means you have lived a life worth living. Embrace that but don’t live there. The past is dust and the future is not yet here. The only place we belong is in the present so live there with vigor. I don’t do most modern films but you’ve piqued my curiosity with Barbie. I may have to make an exception. Hope Tim is on the mend and not inadvertently flipping people off with that middle finger he injured. Love and miss you.