Comings and Goings

There's a funny wee rhythm to life that i've observed time and again. We come, we go. People come into our lives, and they move out of our lives. Some people come and go many times within your life. Some will continue that throughout your life. I guess in Marriage (in a very real way) you commit yourself to coming towards the other person. You try not to move away, but it's inevitable i think, and so you come back again.

And so life resembles this dance of the tides - a moving closer and retreating.

Never completely, but with predictable frequency.

It's not very often that Mez and I have retreated from one another deliberately. But last week was one of the two occasions I can think of. I went to Melbourne for five days for a couple of Clinical Pilates courses. Which meant the separation of Mum and Dad, Father and Daughters for those few days. (Interestingly enough the only other deliberate separation we've had was when Mez went on a course in Melbourne too, in our first year of Marriage!)

So the first thing I really noticed (which of course is entirely different to the first thing i saw... there was many things I saw, not so many that I noticed...) The first thing I noticed was the sign leaving Cairns domestic terminal: Thankyou for visiting Cairns. And I had this shock revelatory moment of realising that every airport we've been to in the past few years has had variations of those very words.

Thankyou for visiting Nottingham. Thankyou for visiting Wellington. Thankyou for visiting Nadi. Thankyou for visiting Rome.

Why did this strike me as odd you may wonder? Surely it's a nice thing to farewell people - an indication of friendliness? A marketing ploy to lure people back by leaving them with a warm feeling? All true. But the thing that struck me was the intimation that we're all visitors... There's not another sign for the locals saying "enjoy your trip away." Only 'thankyou for visiting...' So I got to pondering about the reality of human beings being inherently migratory, about the fact that in days past people moved about in order to find the things they needed for living.

And how nowadays many sit tight in one place because they perceive that they have all they need to live well. And there are yet others (like myself) who believe there is something more to be gained by exploring a little and finding out what else is out there that may be useful to your life...

It's funny. We draw closer and closer to our return home - which is really about creating some stability for the kids and ourselves, about recognising our place where we belong, about 'sitting tight' and yet there is something in me that remains restless, that wants continue to travel this earth and learn all I can from the people that inhabit it. We've really only scratched the surface. We've been to some interesting places. But most of them very safe. Most of them very similar. One learns a lot from experiencing something different. (More on that later...) One learns a lot from being exposed to danger. Bring on some adventure travel (at some yet to be decided point in the future!)

Anyway, I digress. The second thing I noticed on this wee journey to the south of the great southern land was this:Which is a not-that-great photo out the window of the plane... But what struck me, was how similar the sight was to some of the Aboriginal art we've seen. Really cool. Squiggly lines. Dots. Earthy colours. Especially cool, given that the ancient Aborigines would never (one assumes) have been able to see their land from 30,000 ft...

Melbourne was great. Really cool city. Loads of beautiful buildings. And pretty old buildings too given how young Australia is. Refreshing to see public art all over the place, (the gigantic kitch clock was especially cool with its very plastic-ey looking cockatoos that waved their robotic wings for however many minutes the hour was while the clock chimed 'waltzing matilda') as well as a LOT of graffiti. I stayed with some friends whom I went through uni with. Frankie and his wife, Jesse. Really hospitable of them to give me a bed at their place, and to show me around a bit. Muchos Gracious guys. The first day I arrived (Thursday) Jesse and I had a wander through the city, explored a magic shop, found a wonderful lingerie shop (I very nearly bought this stunning item for Mez just for a laugh...) As well as a shop with hundreds of little dolls inside dolls. BizarreWe also had some great spring rolls at a famous Vietnamese place downtown. Good times. When Frankie finished work we met him at home, ate some more and stayed up yarning for far too long. The courses were brilliant (as expected), two two dayers, (with another two two dayers to come later in the year) Lots of really relevant stuff - given that I am going into a business in NZ that is a Clinical Pilates studio. My business partner Sara was helping out with demonstrating on the courses so it was great to be able to catch up with her again too. Friday night Frankie and I stayed up drinking far too late again so I was a bit fragile Saturday which wasn't so pleasant - not sick, just fragile! So saturday night we went for a wander around St Kilda beach and got some greasy horrid Fish & Chips. Cool place though - and very upbeat vibe to the whole area with an amusement park (luna park), great sunset over the water and loads of people out and about in the restaurants, pubs, and just wandering the streets. Definately the face of someone who will make a great dad! Playing Old School space invaders. Very cool. Gutted I didn't have my cool retro jacket to wear!This is just a bit of a theology joke for any Theology geeks out there. Christian Gnosticism is a complete paradox... They (The Gnostics) were excommunicated from the Christian church about the time of Augustine in 400(ish) AD. They didn't particularly have any wisdom to share either. Essentially they believed that there were two classes of people - the plebs who would never get to heaven, and the Gnostics who would attain a place with the Gods by their superior knowledge (Gnosis). Basically they thought that only the intellectuals would get to heaven. Slightly arrogant one might suggest, as differentiated from 'wise'. Sunday Frankie and Jesse left for Florida so I had some time to myself just to relax and go for a wander. Sunday I walked to a park a few Km from where I was staying called princess park - thinking obviously of my two beautiful daughters. And Monday I went for a wander through Queen's park (thinking of my beautiful wife!) Actually it was Queen Victoria park (which sits on the banks of the Yarra river) - but ole queenie is one scary woman... found this bust at the entrance to the park which i thought was a pleasant depiction of her. No such luck. This is Appollo (the Greek and Roman god, not the space craft) Vaguely amusing that this male god is more appealing than Queen Victoria herself. I remember remarking along similar lines after seeing the statues in London. Check out the woman screaming from within her breasts. I think i'd scream too. Also had a bit of a squizz at this Childs play statue called 'Genie' and another statue of king George V who had an interesting bronze statue of Britannia on the opposite side of the monument. I know there was a deeply symbolic meaning behind the things he was holding and I even took a photo of the explanatory piece, unfortunately the photo isn't so clear, and neither is my memory. Anyway there was a cool water nymph in the park too. Hmmm... Minus the water as all the water features were dry as bone... Including the water(less?) nymph. Though I note in the photo i took she looks surrounded by water, which was in fact just a smallish muddy puddle. The remnants obviously of the pond... Anyway, once you're inside the gates of the park, you can almost forget you're in the middle of Australia's second largest city. Which is a great thing to forget if you're not that into cities. That being my usual modus operandi I went on a bit of a search for things of beauty... The art search was part of that, but the parks search was also a part. On my beauty search i had to pass through this quite medieval looking gate. Which is interesting considering Melbourne was settled a long time after the medieval times...I settled on photographing some of the trees. Crap i'm becoming a greenie tree-hugger lately. Actually i think i've always been a greenie tree hugger. So the thing that struck me about all these huge trees, was just how different they all were - different colours, different leaves, different trunks, different bark. All recogniseable as trees. All happily co-existing side by side. Even Dr Suess trees. Like the one below.Of course i'd be a fool to think that just any two trees could flourish side by side. And yet there is such a thing in gardening circles as 'complementary planting' ie. two completely different plants side by side that enhance each others function to no end. Where am i going with this thought. Clearly there are correlates with the tree and human worlds. Clearly there are differences. Some trees get along. Some don't. Trees aren't especially racist. Though lots of similar trees often hang out together. They then get killed by the same diseases, or the same fire, or flood. Those that are all lumped together by some bright human (in a planted forest) have a higher chance of such a fate. Some trees do kill other trees (eg Strangler fig - interesting that strangler figs always kill those they are closest to which is about on par with most murder demographics) Hmmm this is denigrating into something it wasn't meant to. I started talking about beauty. I guess my point was that the things that you notice, inspire thoughts. Thoughts sit there in the great distillary of your mind and get added to, and some wonderful things happen. But I guess the above is proof that some not so wonderful things happen too. We have this infinite grey within which we make our life decisions between the dark and the light. It's a fascinating place to exist really.

And fascinating to wonder about where one sits on such a grey spectrum... on the darker side, or on the lighter side. I think if anyone was asked they'd put themself on the lighter side. Which is an interesting thing to speculate upon. Whatever you or I come up with, likely reflects something of our deeply held beliefs about the goodness, or otherwise of human nature... Can such belief's be changed? Turned into something different? The way a sculptor fashions a sculpture from a lump of wood?

I think 'this' can become 'that'.

Given the right conditions.

Anyway, I've rambled enough. Melbourne was...

noticeable

and

thought provoking(!)