treasure: families

i am a lucky enough girl to have plenty of families. there are the families we are born into, and the families we make for ourselves. i've spent the past 6 weeks immersed in family.  'tis the season for family, Christmas and New Years', and man oh man did we win at it.

i hereby provide exhibit a: photographic evidence.

 

 

Thanks to Karin, Mitch & Mark for borrowed photography

exhibit b: stories and contemplation

it was just the right amount of fun and downtime, and my love for all these people only grew in the time i was lucky enough to spend with them. it was the first time in probably 2 years that me and the whistler gang had all been together, looking each other in the eye instead of over Skype, or on Facebook and Instagram. i think the main thing i noticed was just how much we appreciated each other, and just how much of a family we were.

when you're in whistler, you're in the thick of things- part of what i loved about that was you tend to live in the 'right now' of your life, without too much thought past the next payday. it's a kind of freedom you don't tend to get for a long time in your life, and should be whole-heartedly enjoyed. what i never did a lot of at the time was to appreciate what long-lasting friendships i was setting up with every potluck dinner, every day on the mountain, every night out dancing at Bill's, every moment dressed up in costume. this is the stuff true love is made of; people who are on your wavelength, who agree with you (and disagree with you too), who laugh with you and commiserate with you and fill your days up with company.

when you leave whistler, and go your separate ways, you suddenly realise how lovely that all was, with the pang of retrospective contemplation and a realisation that Other People (people that haven't been to whis) do not think it's ok to have a double caesar for breakfast on your days off.

meeting up again 2 years later for the wedding of kate and phill was just a wonderful choice. it made me realise how we have all grown and changed, but miraculously we're all still awesome in slightly different ways. the world outside of whistler has been bearing down on us and we've all risen to the challenge. we're all proud of each other the way family is, and fiercely so. we all partied and wore the shit out of our dragon onesies (an awesome purchase and another wonderful choice), drank double caesars for breakfast and ate eggs benny, a Karin Rofors speciality. we re-lived some of the best bits of whistler, but it was really about us being together. and together we were. in cars, on beaches, in planes and on trains, in houses, in tents, in hammocks, on decks, in marquees, on dance floors, in limousines, in vans, in tow trucks, in beds, in cabins, on SkyDeck, on Facebook and Instagram.

we were everywhere in our togetherness.

now, we are apart again. it's a little bit sad, but truthfully the together part was so much fun and so powerful in its ability to make me feel both grounded and filled with helium excitement that i can't feel too sad for too long.

i think life is about the people you miss as a flipside of togetherness. there are always people to miss - it's the life of a traveller, and we all love to travel. it's the people that you meet that make you who you are, and these people are all parts of me, in their sticky happy fizzy ways.

sending you love, dragon and non-dragon friends. all of the love.

do you even know how much i love you?

Friday Feminism: on smiling like you mean it

there is a difference between smiling and being happy. in thinking a little more on how to expand upon this sentiment i have guiltily harboured over a great many years, i can't quite remember an exact time when i was told that it was good for a girl to smile. nevertheless, i somehow knew this, and have known it for a long long time. it's more appropriate to smile than frown. fake it 'til you make it, honey. smile, it might never happen. turn that from upside-down. smile, it can't be that bad. smile, nobody wants those ugly frown lines. why don't you smile? you're so beautiful when you smile. smile, and the whole world smiles with you.

i call bullshit. there is a difference between smiling and being happy. sometimes a smile is just baring your teeth, and that seems more like a scary savagery to me. 

the thing that i always feel, the instant that someone tells me to smile, is that they somehow believe that their need to see happy people around them is more important than me choosing my own facial expressions. their need, not mine. smiling doesn't make me happy, one way or another. i don't buy that. i'm not saying we don't smile when we're happy - that's when i'm most likely to smile, but one does not necessarily follow the other. 

the well-meaning folk might not even know just how offensive i find it to be told to smile, and i try to be generous, and give them the benefit of the doubt. being that i know it's more their issue or insecurity, i keep the choice remarks from slipping out of my mouth. no, i'm not having a bad day, sometimes i'm just doing my job, and nowhere in my job description is it specified that data entry must come with a side of smiley face.

there is a difference between smiling and being happy. if i am not happy, i hardly think being told to smile by someone who doesn't know my business is going to turn it all around for me. 

it comes to a few much bigger issues. 

1) just how scary it is for people to be ok within themselves that they are not happy all the time. but a person cannot be happy every minute of the day, and that is ok- not a failure or a flaw. i have a lot of days where i'm not ecstatic or even happy as such, but it doesn't mean i'm anything less than content with my life. or sometimes i'm not even content with my life, but i'm ok with having those days. because i'm a human. it's not unusual and it makes the true happiness that much sweeter.

2) the expectation of women to cover over the truth of how they feel for the sake of keeping up appearances is just total bullshit. like it's in a man's power to say a few magic words, and a woman will suddenly drastically have all the crap they're inevitably dealing with wash away like it was a triviality. like a woman's ability to feel other emotions besides a need to appear pleasant to strangers detracts from her deep and significant beauty. 

women are told to smile by strangers on the street. sometimes it's yelled out of cars. if these hollerers, these unknown men who feel so free and easy to comment on and order about the faces of women they do not know, were hollered back at, how would they like it? sadly, i fear the truth is that there are not a lot of women who would respond with the requires bravery, for fear of what might happen. and i think that's a thing to not smile about in and of itself, frankly. 

women are often the pointed end of a punch line for such unacceptable human habits as: feeling feelings in public, getting upset about being treated badly, having opinions they don't keep to themselves, talking too loudly, expecting decent human behaviour, and other overly emotional aspects. to be told to slap on a smile and cover it up is simply ridiculous, and undermines the reality of what might end up being suffered in silence. 

if what you mean when you are telling someone to smile is that "you don't seem very happy today. I wish you were happier right now, and I want to be there for you to help you be happy"' then say that instead. feeling like your inability to smile at whatever you've been dealt that day, or week, or month, makes you another level of failure when you're really not, you're just fine. it's actually alright if you're not happy today. you're not a failure for having a day that leaves you angry, sad or even 'meh'. i suppose this post might come off a bit grumpy, but i truly believe in each person's right to be themselves. being told to cheer up, as an order, is sometimes a hard thing to hear. it's unfair to tell someone who suffers depression that all they need to do is smile.

you're a lovely wonderful human with all of the feelings, so feel them, if you want. feel them all over your little face. the rough weather makes the good weather just fantastic.

so smile if you want to, and don't if you don't. you're ok just like you are, whether or not i can see your teeth.

and i haven't even touched on my favourite fallback, which is 'i'm not unhappy, i just have bitchy resting face'. 

more on this another time!

30pictureschallenge: Day 9

this mug reminds me of a pillowcase i saw recently, in an article about tavi gevinson where they put in some photos of her in her room. the pillowcase in question has "here you will dream of endless kissing" on it, and i sort of wish it was mine.

i have a bit of a love-hate relationship with love. wait, hear me out. i'm a reader and sometimes a writer (a lover and sometimes a fighter) and so the concept of love to me is sometimes that it's a thing of power and awesomeness, like all you need is love... like the moulin rouge guy, wasshisname mcgregor (kidding- love ewan and all of his accent and face). maybe it's the first parts that come with being in love that i love so much. the parts where you're bulletproof and giddy.

i don't love in halves. when i love a person, that's basically like saying, i really like them quite a lot. i could write poetry and songs and let's face it, drop them into blog entries as much as i can.

or i have in the past, anyways. but after this last particular failed relationship, i can't help but feel a little suspicious of love. like love is a bit of a tricker and a heartbreaker. i suspect that i'm overly enthusiastic about being in love, and that probably what i should do is just chill the fuck out and play it cool, let love sneak up on me, impress me, buy me flowers. oh wait, that's not love - that's just a nice boy.

i've managed to date a whole collection of people who may have, collectively among them, bought me flowers 3 times in an accumulative total of 7.5 years. i am clearly picking the wrong people, and those people are picking the wrong flowers (by that i obviously mean: no flowers at all). i've always hoped for them, much like i've always hoped for commitment and a little emotional maturity, and yet here i am, me, the friendly blogger, without flowers or commitment or any of those things of the fairytales.

it's a tricky thing though, because even after all that whining, i'd take the endless kissing dreamt of on a special pillowcase, or the warm coffeecup kisses. i'd take them and run away with them, all the way to a dream place full of adult men with aspirations and goals, flowers, and -let's face it- failing actual facial hair, at least the ability to grow some.

love, huh? tricky bastard.

30pictureschallenge: Day 3

this is winter time in whistler. it looks like it's christmas, but the magic of whistler is that it looks like this all through winter.

things freeze, things stop, things slow. at the same time, there is frenetic energy. the village is filled with visitors; it's a visitor's town.

when fresh snow falls, right down to the village, there's a nice time during the night before it's cleared away and salt laid to make safe paths for those unaccustomed to the white winter underfoot. before it's cleared away, it gives beneath your feet. it makes a sort of muffled crunch, a murmur released as you leave a footprint behind.

it's ankle deep. sometimes it's knee deep. these are the nights you quietly head for home; these nights promise nextmornings filled with pow turns and faces full of snow. your heart fills with the anticipation of it. you smile at strangers as you trudge by them, wading through the fresh snow to the bus stop, and home. you pull your hood up; you wrangle your toque into place under your hood. you check your pockets and pull on the mittens you have stowed there.

the more the snow falls, the wider and fuller your heart becomes. the flakes are big, floaty things; they drift slowly to the ground or they fall thick and fast. you're covered in them as you walk, you brush them out of your face and off your eyelashes. they're wet and cold, but you don't mind; on still snowy nights such things can easily be forgiven.

off the bus, you're making your careful way up a hill that is foiling any cars without winter tyres. you pick a path and patiently put one foot in front of the other, avoiding the slipperiness that comes with packed down snow.

once home, you shake yourself off and shed a wet outer layer; hang up a coat, stash your boots. you rub your hands together and blow into them as you stomp your way up the stairs, buoyant with the magic of the winter world you just traveled through to make it back. upstairs there are housemates, equally happy in their anticipation of what tomorrow will bring on the mountain.

a cup of tea, a brief chat, a plan made for the morning, then bed.

treasure: my granny, Patricia Taylor

One of my favourite bloggers, Pip from Meet me at Mike's, has suggested a blog-along about grandmothers today. You can read hers and be inspired maybe to write something of your own, as I am today.

I think often about my Granny, who it turns out has been a huge influence on many of us Taylor folk, one way or the other. The only thing I ever occasionally let myself feel sad about in relation to Granny is that I'd just love to sit down with her now, at 27, and have a good old chat about things. Now I understand a little more. Now I'm an adult. Now I've met more of the whole wide world, and consequently realised just how wonderful she was, not just as my Granny (for she was given instant 'wonderful' status ever since I can remember) but as a woman.

Of course, I never knew Granny as a mum, but from what I gather she managed 5 kids and a husband on a NSW sheep farm quite adequately, not to mention the governesses, the jackaroos, and the rest of the surrounding family. As a Granny, she was kind and strong, and somehow managed to make each of her 14 grandkids feel special to her. Until I was 10 or so, she lived just down the hill from us, so close that Mum was able to stand at the top of the hill and watch me toddle down to see me arrive safely in Granny's waiting arms. From there, she took me inside and I was fed shortbreads and hardbiscuits (a family recipe, an oat & golden syrup combination that are infamous), as well as allowed to help out with baking and making butter. I got sat on the edge of the kitchen bench while she went about this business, and was occasionally granted my very own little ball of new butter to put on toast, or eat then and there, delicious and creamy, popped straight into my little mouth.

It sounds a bit odd as a treat for a child, but I must say it was my absolute favourite thing. What I wonder about now is what her and I talked about, for I'm certain I would have chatted away happily with her for hours (genetic trait, the chatting- Granny was the best chatter I know) about all my secrets and thoughts. I imagine I may even have bored her with my chat, having since discovered that once kids figure out how to make themselves understood, they Do. Not. Shut. Up.

Growing past this rosy-cheeked child stage, I know I missed having Granny and Grandfather so close by when they moved into town. Our family moved into the homestead, and all the mystical places that had hidden secrets inside when Granny and Grandfather lived there were opened up and brought to light. Furniture was moved out and empty space left for our family to move on in. The 'good' lounge room stopped being a closed space in the dark, and Grandfather's dressing room stopped smelling of mystery and was instead painted blue, becoming a bedroom for my little brother Stuart.

Their new house in town became the place for Christmases and family get togethers, and while those were always special, it was the one-on-one times with Granny that I remember that house for. I cannot remember ever watching television there, instead we'd drink countless cups of tea and I'd read my book, or tell Granny about highschool, or whatever else I felt like chatting about. I can't remember ever trying out teenage rebellion on her; while I was a well-behaved girl, I had a truly awful temper with which I would constantly tear strips off my parents, but I'm pretty sure I never tried that out on Granny. One wouldn't.

As always with the passing of time and the gaining of maturity, on reflection I feel truly amazed by the legacy and impact Granny had upon me, and I don't doubt, all of the other Taylors I know. I think of her now as my conscience; when I act well, true to myself, when I help others or resist making an easy choice in favour of a better choice, I feel quietly proud of myself in the same way that I imagine Granny might. When I make a mistake, or a knowingly act in a way that I regret later, I shake my head, try not to beat myself up too much and instead think "Next time, I'll do better". That's what Granny has given me. I expect a lot of myself, which I know is a 'Taylor' trait with which we all have been blessed/cursed.

In the end, I only have a few tangible objects which have come from Granny. One is a green glass bead necklace, another is her copy of "Alice in Wonderland" from back when she was a Fraser instead of a Taylor, and the last, a happy discovery of just this month, is that the curtains that hang in my beloved van Queen Maude are made from scraps of sailboat fabric that Mum was given by Granny. So I have a little piece of something of hers to travel about with every single day. That is truly lovely.

Another treasure is a rhyme that has stayed with me for many many years, and I'm sure all the Taylors are reciting it in their heads while reading this. This Mabel Lucie Attwell poem hung on a towel rail in Granny's bathroom from since way before I can remember, and it will always remind me of having baths at her place, having my little body rubbed dry with a towel by Granny in her more limber days on her knees by the bathtub; it will remind me of the countless times I read it when visiting the toilet, moving the hip-friendly toilet seat out of the way. In a way I guess it is Granny, through and through. Tidying up after yourself and thinking of others, meeting your responsibilities head on.

Sending all my love, not only to Granny, but to all of us who love and miss her - Patricia Taylor, you're one heck of a lady to live up to, but all of us, we're doing our best (which I'm sure is all you'd really expect of us anyway).

secret: love and other parts of the pickle

at this time of the year it is easier to go down than up. the weather is rubbish. all you want to do is drink.

because it snowed today, like SNOWED EVERYWHERE, and i bought my season pass, and there are all these people that i'm meeeting, who are great and interesting and not full of shit (although there really are a lot of those too), i am in love.

during the day, when there is snow and lattes, this love is all uplifting and whatnot.

at nighttime you end up on facebook chat listening to random people with webcams who have posted videos on youtube, terrible covers of songs you like.

being in love is exhilirating but somehow melancholy when reality sets in and you are, for all intents and purposes, alone.

maybe if i focused my love upon one person instead of loving everybody.

but then how would i save the planet?

secret:

secret: a rainy sunday afternoon and much contemplation

oh god, what am i going to do with my life??

yes folks, it's one of those posts. i just turned 25. i got a tattoo that i love. in a month, i will be able to go snowboarding, which is so exciting! i just can't seem to see past it. which is probably not a bad thing. but for some reason, tonight i just want to make some kind of life-altering decision.

i am certain i'll be over it by the morning.

options: stay here.
go home.
study. here or home.

firstly, sort out where home is.

i have a life here. it's a life that i like. here is home.
melbourne is home. there are people in it that i love and miss.
brisbane might be fun.

pfffft I am going to bed.

i'm just so grumpy

can't decide if i'm sad sack from the raggy dolls or eeyore.

some freakish combination of both.
stupid crappy everything stuff.

day 13. a letter to someone who has hurt you recently

tricky, but here goes:

(it may be a little angry, probably more angry than hurt)

to whom it may concern:
a person shouldn't fly across the world for another person who thinks they are going to have a special and important week together if that person has actually been seeing someone else for the past 2 months.

because it hurts to hope, especially when you believe you are hoping with good reason, and to have the hope crushed.

mostly i don't care, but then now and then i get quite angry.

day 10. songs you listen to when you're: happy, sad, mad, hyped, bored.

happy: 'the underdog' by spoon. 'bonkers' and 'dance wiv me' by dizzee rascal. '1901' by phoenix.

sad: '3 rounds and a sound' by blind pilot. 'cosmic love' by florence and the machine. 'sideways' by citizen cope. 'winter song' by sara bareilles and ingrid michaelson

mad: never stay mad very long. probably something from "happy" or "hyped" in an attempt to distract myself.

hyped: '15 step' by radiohead. any of urthboy's back catalogue. ditto bliss n eso. such good riding music. riding is when i'm hyped. stoked in fact.

bored: pop music, currently beyonce, and that song 'dynamite' by taio cruz.
and so many more. so freekin many more.

treasure: music

not to be too dramatic or anything, but uh, without music i would die.

i'm so in love with my july playlist, i don't want to let it go. i'm sad it's august, and it's time for a new playlist. because i love love love it. anyway, i guess discovering new stuff is what keeps me happy. i want to make some more music of my own.

my all time best music experience lately was getting drunk with nicole and sitting on our balcony, singing harmonies for 'space they cannot touch' by kate miller heidke. the first time i ever saw her play that song was years and years ago, before she was on the radio. she played at woodford folk festival in 2003, and i was in love (foolishly as he turned out to be a crazy person) and blissfully happy in the ridiculous queensland tropical summer, sitting on a mountainside, sweating from everywhere, gloriously uncaring of every crappy thing in the world for the pure joy of sitting with my bare feet in the grass, with a teeny breeze, listening to a chick with an amazing voice.

the point of it all is, music listening is the one thing that i am always happy to do. whatever mood, wherever i am. it makes everything better, even if it makes you feel worse, for the enhancement of melancholy ... i like a little melancholy now and then (i hope i am spelling it right).

i am glad i can play guitar. i sang a song for nicole and she liked it. so now i feel brave. maybe soon i will record some things.

i like pleasure spiked with pain and music is my aeroplane

... is my aeroplane

an observation

maybe being in a relationship is not so great.

all recent emo-ness aside, i can't help but consider the fact that at least i don't have to have arguments with someone, the kind of arguments that two entirely different people have when they decide, for some bizarre reason, to commit to each other rather than anyone else.

even the most perfect couples fight, because it is human nature. i think it's more how you deal with the fighting, how you react to it and how you move past it, that marks what sort of a couple you are.

being in a relationship is constant negotiation. and requires constant compassion. and sometimes it is just about taking a really deep breath before you say something small, poisonous and mean. at least, that's my experience. because i am a snarky individual when i want to be.

it's the being in love, and the heartbreaking fun of it all, that's the bit i miss. the practical, pay-the-bills-on-time, take-the-garbage-out, it's-your-turn-to-do-the-dishes stuff, that bit i do not miss. although a certain level of comfort can be found in this very level of domesticity.

is it fair to blame hollywood for the myth of romance? please can i blame them? fuckers.

i think the only way to keep magic happening is not to live with your lover. ever. this is a theory i am working on, but judging on my luck lately, i will never ever be able to test this theory out again...

there, emo, BAM, right in your eye!

treasure: journal

yes blog, i am cheating on you with my journal. well i suppose technically i am cheating on my journal with you.

i have kept a journal since i became an angsty teenager. as far as i am concerned, i am still an angsty teenager. possibly forever. i have a billion of them stashed safely at mum's house. i just finished one that ellie gave me as a travel present, and now i am into the red one that mum gave me... as a travel present. i delight in being this predictable.

a blog seems to me to be part journal, part self-advertisement. i am pretty sure about 2.5 people read my blog, so that's not bad.

and now, dear 2.5 readers, i want to share something from a journal that i just found tonight, that i kind of like as far as my writing goes:

"she bought tobacco, filters and papers, and took up smoking, just for this rainy friday afternoon, just for something to do. she had returned to her hometown to somehow find herself alone and wandering about, eyeing off highschool children nursing a vague sense that she knew them somehow, that they were friends she'd not yet met. at 23, even the youngest of her brothers had long been finished with highschool (to his relief) and so she did not know any of them, not really. she spent a quiet afternoon smoking, lingering over cups of coffee at the town's various cafes, staring at strangers over the top of her cup. she bought a book. she had no way of knowing the time; she was without a watch, as she had been for the past year, too lazy to commit the single seemingly easy act of buying a new battery. easier to buy tobacco, filters and papers, and take up smoking, just for one rainy friday afternoon."

i like to write descriptions of myself as though i am a character in a book. maybe i am a character in a book. that thought makes me happy.

i have always loved writing, and i think i always will. maybe i should do something with that love- create something worth selling.

oh, i don't know. what i do know is that i love and treasure my red journal, and all my journals really. slightly alarming that i have been writing the same shit in them for more than 10 years.