Singular Scene

So Singular in Each Particular

Home is Where your Heart is.

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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

I’m in Mexico

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No, really. It’s what they call Victoria, you know, if you’re from New South Wales… Mexico… south of the border.

Hey, I never said it was funny (or culturally sensitive). I wonder though, do Queenslanders call New South Welshmen, Mexicans too? For we are south of their border. Please advise. (What can I say, these are the things I think about.)

That was a dreadfully long way of saying I’m back in Melbourne. You know, because I can’t move here soon enough, and I got cheap airfares, and because Katia is here and so, given she came all the way from Paris to Melbourne, the least I could do was trek down from Sydney (as if I needed an excuse) in order that we may meet over dim sum.

So here I am in Mexico Melbourne and being here has a whole different feel now that it is settled in my head and heart that I’m going to come live here. It seems to me that I should feel all sorts of excited, and I do, but the idea also feels overwhelming. You know, that “OMG what on earth am I thinking?”; “is it really a good idea?”; “am I going to regret this/am I really sure?” and is it too late to change my mind? feeling. Of course, it isn’t too late to change my mind. Neither do I want to, but just to make sure, I sift through all my reasons for making such a change and examine them, turning each one over and checking it for any warping or twisting, for anything that undermines this overwhelming desire for change.

I factor in to these thoughts (as a last resort), that if things don’t work out it’s only my pride that will get hurt, that if I hightail it back to Sydney in the next 6 months at least I’ll be able to say I had given it a go. But even in having said that, I’m really not doubting the idea at all, just acutely aware that whatever expectations, large or small I bring to such a change NONE of them will be met exactly as I anticipate them. Some will be exceeded, some may be shattered, but I’ll make the move and hope and plan (as well as I can) for the best.

Scratching the Itch

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It’s been a few months since I confessed to being restless, to being ready for a change, to being tired of feeling stagnant and dry and, quite frankly, bored. I posited that it was on my mind to make a move. To change my scenery. And while at the time it was little more than a wish or a dream, in the intervening months it became one that I have been having so repeatedly that I finally started listening to my heart.

The long and the short of it is, I’m moving. After nearly 14 years in Sydney I’m packing up my things and heading south of the border to Victoria, to Melbourne.

I have been loving Melbourne for two years, ever since I drove down there with a friend to move her back to her home state. I’ve been visiting her and a succession of friends who’ve moved there or whom I’ve met in those regular visits and every time I drive in along the Hume Highway, or fly in and catch a glimpse of the city, my heart skips a beat with the possibility of being there. So I’ve decided to listen to that skipping beat, to that whisper of excitement and I’m just going to do it.

I’m excited, I plan to be leaving NSW at the end of October, or early in November, I’ve already culled my wardrobe of clothing I don’t wear and books I won’t want to take, I’m loving, so much, the feeling of shedding the weight of STUFF that’s not necessary to take with me and is cluttering (mostly) my office, and I am BEYOND excited that a new city, new experiences, new friends and a new environment will almost certainly breathe new life into this dusty old blog.

Let alone, new life into a dusty old me.