Singular Scene

So Singular in Each Particular

Next stop, Victoria

by

I’m sitting at the gate lounge, ready to board the flight, but I’m early, so I have time to write a note, a post to mark the end of one era and the start of the next.

As I started writing, out came a bit of a melancholy post about leaving, about closing the door on my old flat on Thursday, and every time I got to the end of that paragraph I ran out of places to go. My time in Sydney was really summed up in the previous post, in the farewell speech; my time in Sydney is a time that is marked simply by incredible people. The place I lay my head every evening is/was no more valuable than the people who were ever there with me.

The little flat on Sydney Road is a poky little place, dark, damp, and little, did I mention little? Two rooms and a bathroom, sufficient but in terms of having people over to stay, restricted. Which isn’t to say people never stayed… but it’s challenging to rearrange the furniture every evening in order that the sofa-bed can be unfurled…

Once upon a time I had a dining table and friends would come for cards, or dinner and then I started working from home and the table became a desk and formal dining went out the window in favour of Pad Thai eaten off our laps on the sofa. Sufficient, yes, but more casual than I like, and the number of people who can fit on my sofa was limited to 2… so eating out became more normal than eating in when there were friends visiting.

I’m completely happy to have spent so long in an awesome city, one that I love and that I now know so well that I can recommend so much of it to all those who ask me what’s great about Sydney.

In looking forward, I think the things I think I’ll love about the new place are the space, the light and the room. Room for people to stay, room for people to eat from the dining table, room to move, room to grow. Room for the cat to exhaust herself zooming from the bedroom to the office in her late afternoon bursts of high energy antics.

So, this afternoon I’ll touch down in the state of Victoria, tomorrow the cat will, and at some point this week, hopefully earlier rather than later, my furniture will also arrive.

I’m so looking forward to getting acquainted with Melbourne, and being able to introduce my Sydney friends to her as well.

But for now, see you soon Sydney.

So long, and thanks for an amazing 14 years.

Faring Well

by

I mark occasions with words. These are such words, delivered at the small gathering of close friends on Saturday evening all together to mark my moving to Melbourne, beautifully hosted by Prue and her family.

I am so blessed.

I knew if I didn’t write this down I wouldn’t be able to coherently string the thoughts together, let alone the words.  It’s been an emotional week; I suspect the next few will be much the same.

I deliberately made this a small gathering, I wanted to be able to see everyone properly, to be able to mark this occasion without fluff and nonsense and the fleeting hellos and goodbyes that come with a larger party.

You’re here because you’ve been a significant part of my journey here in Sydney. But more importantly because I believe you’ll be a significant part of my world still, even though I’m a little further away.

I was talking to Mick yesterday as we mulled over things of faith and church and community, as we always do, and as we talked I wondered aloud, asking “Why on earth am I leaving?” and his reply, sage as always, was “You’re not leaving, you’re just moving away.”

It’s true, I’m putting physical distance between us, but the bigger thing is that our spiritual and emotional distance will be the same as it ever was.  Non-existent. And given today’s technology, and heck, even yesterday’s technology (remember telephones?) the gaps really aren’t very wide.

I have far too many thank-yous in my heart than I can give voice to really, but I want to acknowledge some of the particular moments, and by extension, the significant people here because without them I would be so much less the person I am today.

Maree and Richard, thank you first for having us here tonight, and for including me in so many of your family gatherings.  You all know how to throw a party, and the centre of it is your incredible gift, and heart for hospitality.  I’ve never felt more welcome than I do when I’m here, and I thank you that tonight you’ve done the same for my friends.

Mick, almost 4 years ago, in a tongue in cheek moment, I can’t even remember how, whether it was by SMS, or by twitter or that old fashioned email malarkey, you sent me a line from Solsbury Hill, the Peter Gabriel song… that said “grab your things, I’ve come to take you home…”

That one line changed my life. Or, at least, it started something… and the Upper Room, this place that God, you, and Marg have built has, for the last almost 4 years, done more for me than I am able to acknowledge. I can’t thank you enough for continuing to take us on a journey of this thing called church. I love that you never get stuck on its definition but continue instead to explore how to live out our faith, hope and love  (whatever it looks like) authentically.  By doing so you’ve inspired and empowered me to do the same wherever I am. I look forward to seeing where that ongoing journey takes you, and us and I pray that I find somewhere equally as inspiring down there in ‘Mexico’.

Pam, I realise that embracing the Upper Room the way I have puts, in some ways, into shadow that which came before.  I cannot acknowledge one without the other, nor can I diminish the significance of my time at C3. If not for C3, or for SCA I wouldn’t be here at all.  And one of the best things about it still, is you.  Thank you for coaching me through some of the biggest challenges I’ve faced, for loving me and looking after me even after I’d long left Oxford Falls. And thank you for transitioning from being my pastor to being a dear friend.  I’ll miss you, and look forward to the occasional Sunday night phone call when you’re on your way home from church and your voice drops out as you drive along the Parkway!

Jeff, there are too many moments… from that first when I approached you at Parachute with my knees actually knocking and asked that first question every Kiwi asks before they come to Australia “Are the spiders really as big as they say?” (answer is yes, by the way), to the time when for the first time in years we spoke properly and the walls of another’s making came down. I sat in Berkelouws in the Southern Highlands bawling my eyes out and you had called, and for the first time in a long time I felt safe again.  You and Julie put me back together and in the years since I’ve so loved being a part of your world and your new journey as more and more people find themselves in the pages of your book.

Robby and Mirre. I can’t remember when I met you, nor can I even remember when we reconnected through the Upper Room. In some strange way it feels as though there wasn’t ever a time when we weren’t friends.  It feels like I’ve always hung out on a Sunday night watching movies, talking all the way through them and eating cashew nuts and chocolate and drinking whatever new beer is in the fridge. It really has only been a couple of years and it feels like a lifetime.  Thank you for being more real than anyone and letting me be exactly the same.  Thanks for keeping me a bed in your office Robby, so that when I am desperate to come watch a movie in person I know I have a place to sleep.

Prue, I don’t even know where to start. The best way I can describe us is that we’ve walked alongside each other, for years.  SO many moments, so many Friday nights with so many amazing people, so many long phone calls while you drive home from work, so many tears, and laughs and so.much.depth.  I’m so glad you are tied to Melbourne, because I know it won’t be long before I’m taking you out on a Friday night in Victoria and we’ll be sitting in a bar talking about technology, life, love and all the good things.

Before I get to the hardest acknowledgement of all of them, thank you to Jen, who I see so rarely but about whom I love that we always seem completely pick up exactly where we left off. Cherie who makes me laugh so hard and who makes the place brighter with her bubbly smiley ways, but behind which lives a deeply creative, thoughtful individual. Please don’t stop writing your blog; I totally love to know what you’re thinking, and Mick your quiet presence seems unchanged from when I first met you, and I’m so glad to see that you’ve got more music on the go, don’t lose that.  I remember that word I gave you years ago, that your music splits hard wood to allow it once again to catch fire.  I think that’s still true.

Deep Breath

Kirstin, you are my very first, honest to goodness, best friend.  I know that being in Victoria isn’t going to change that. At.All. I can’t wait to see you for the Grand Prix. But strongly suspect I’ll be up here to see you before then!

In any case, I won’t ever forget you praying for me at the end of our second year, unpacking for me that inner knowledge about what I’d be doing come the third year, and sure enough there we were. Back for more college.

I won’t ever forget losing our minds in the middle of the Easter production rehearsal when I got the revelation that the Holy Ghost was called Brendan and that name will now always be accompanied with me giggling out loud, I suspect you’re the same…

I won’t forget all the blood sweat and tears that went into Four on the Floor and the arranging and singing of songs with Jake and Brent and those awful shiny vests and boater hats. But man, what FUN ~ and then Harmonycity later on down the track; Way too much awesome music and I’m so glad we were making it TOGETHER.

I won’t forget you calling me to tell me Jacob was on his way and me making you keep him inside you for a whole weekend, just so that I could meet him on the day he was born, and that he, and you were the best part of the most difficult, challenging period in my life.

I won’t forget holding Lily and being blessed a 2nd time to be called a godmother, and even now, her high pitched “Auntie Dee” and having her launch herself at me is one of my favourite things, ever.

I won’t forget Helen, Guy, and how much she loved us all and what a firecracker she was and how in the few years we knew each other she just, as much as you, included me in the Jackson family, and Guy, thank you for sharing your best friend with me and for abiding by her directive that you aren’t allowed to give me shit.  I’m sure it was all you could do to obey that one some times… In any case for both of us to be so loved by Kirstin, makes us so incredibly blessed. Thank you.

There are way more moments than I can acknowledge, 14 years is a long time and they have been an incredible 14 years.  Above them all, I can do no more than close by thanking God, the one who is the common thread, the glue, the tie that binds us all and whose love is evident by the love that I feel for, and that I feel from all of you.

Thank you, I love you all so very, very much. And you better bloody come visit me in Melbourne… and soon, I have a spare bed, I shall be expecting you.

A Valid Question – Part 2

by

On the other end of that whispered prayer there became a growing desire to pursue some further study in the area of music and ministry, singing particularly and worship leading at its more specific end.  I did some research and came up with a couple of possible places that catered to both, neither of them in NZ, one of them predictably Hillsong College, the other being the then lesser known School of Creative Arts (as it was then, now C3 College). To cut a long story short I chose to apply only to SCA.

As to why I made that choice, some years before I had overheard a conversation between the then Principal of the college and a friend of mine, in which he said to her, “If all you can think about when you wake up in the morning, is singing, you should be at my college.”  I’m not sure what sort of impact this had on my friend though she did indeed spend a year at his college the following year (1994ish) but that statement went right through me and never really left though at the time I remember shaking my head thinking “that could never be about me.”

Fast Forward to that evening in 1998 and the whispered prayer that really started the ball rolling, so when I’m thinking about which college to apply to, Crabman’s statement came back to mind and I figured I’d give it a shot… I’d put in the application to SCA and let God or fate decide whether I’m going, or not, on the back of a successful or otherwise application.

Cue a successful application, some incredible financial support from my church (who paid 2.5 years of fees for me, I am still blown away by that) and I found myself right up at February 1999 waiting at the airport for my ride to CCC (Christian City Church then, now C3 church) and the beginning of a 3 year journey of challenge, insight, faith, frustration, but above all, friendship.

You see, realistically, the best, most magnificent legacy of that time (and there were many, some less good than others) are the people I encountered and who have become the best and most important part of my world.

I started writing a list of the for you, until I realised there was no way words about each of my incredible friends does them any justice, suffice it to say that I have been incredibly blessed with people who know me. People who really, really know me and love me just the same. People who see way more in me than I do, and who have grieved my choice to move away, almost as much as I have.

They are the greatest part of my world, and the hardest part of Sydney to leave.

So, that’s basically how I ended up in Sydney, and frankly, why I stayed so long.  I have documented a little of why I’m moving on, it isn’t nearly so ‘spiritual’ a reason as a direct call to come and learn ministry.  Actually, it’s probably just as spiritual, but in these 14 years there is a great deal that’s changed for me about what spiritual means.

But that’s a whole ‘nother blog post. For another day.

Home is Where your Heart is.

by

I’ve never really been the kind of person who hankers after the past, who longs for different times, different places. I’ve never really been one to get homesick, never have really been stuck on the past, or the future for that matter.  I can be quite content with where things are at now, and where I am, and who I’m with… it never seems as though people are far away any more, and frankly I’m pretty excellent at being alone… I rarely feel lonely.

I notice, when I revisit places I used to live, I don’t feel nostalgic; I think this is because when we hark back to different, simpler times, we wish to go back, to undo past wrongs, to heal, or to relive times when things were better, when we were happier.  I’m not critical of people who do feel this way, but it’s never been part of my makeup.  Maybe the whole ‘No Regrets, No Excuses‘ thing is indicative of this too.  No point in holding on to what’s gone on before, just live, let go and be free.

That’s rather a philosophical way of introducing my new home… A place I haven’t yet seen but to which I’ve committed for the next 12 months. How’s that for life on the edge?  Moving into a place you haven’t set foot in yet…  Life on the edge… that’s me.

I’m comfortable with this because of a combination of gut feeling and advance guard… I saw this flat in my regular perusal of apartments in the area I want to live in and felt at once I should get it checked out… My first wish is a house with natural light, stark contrast to the flat I’m in now wherein the best beneficiary of the light is Lulu, her bed being on top of the microwave, the only place the light falls for any period… Furthermore it’s brilliant to have friends like the Tailor who will serve as the advance guard… and as such I sent the poor woman for a look at the flat with the following exhaustive list of questions…Continue Reading