love and misses

some love and some loss

In 2003 I moved to the USA. To cut a long story short I ended up studying Literature in college over there (in one of those classrooms where I would one day sit down next to the guy I would end up marrying). During this time I learned how to write. I fell in love with it. I realized how much I had to say and how I could create whatever I wanted to with words. Words are the most wonderfully powerful and magical little creations we have. The stuff we say and the stuff we write can (for better or worse) change lives, and change the world.

The poem below is about love and loss. Everyone in the world has lost something.

No matter what the journey has been like for you, me, the person next to you, or the person sitting across from you - we all know loss. It's a part of life that puts us all on the same page. We all understand what it's like to miss someone or something, and how sometimes when you lose that irreplaceable person, place or thing, you lose a little piece of yourself in the meanwhile. This poem talks about that.

A lament (part one)

When you went away
a piece of me died too.
And I miss you:

Not like a favourite TV show that went off the air in the nineties,
or an old song I used to listen to on cassette in high school and can't find anywhere.
Not like cheap petrol prices
or when everyone was fine with tap water.

But more like a piece of the land (Home) burned away by the Fire,
or like grandmother's mother's jewels taken one night by thieves dressed in black.
Perhaps like a rib
(my insides).

You, the sweetest one -
Irreplaceable,
Irresistible (to everyone, my dear).

And I'm glad we're all allowed some broken parts,
we all leave here a little messy in the end.
Our pages yellow and rolled up - corners folded in
by everyone.


So now I'm old, grey and soft around the edges.
Too grey for this colourful world.
Too soft for this firm and hard humanity.

And I still miss you so much.

Italian Night

Here is a photo I found of the famous Italian Nights that Bob and I would host when we lived in Broad Ripple, Indianapolis. The whole crew lived a bike ride away and we were always together. So on Italian Night, we would get the dear friends together, cram us all into our teeny-little-crappy-rental, pull out the cheap wine, and oohhhh the good times we would have.

We would spend the whole day cooking up an Italian feast, Jon and Ames would come early with extra chairs and plates, hang the lights and light the candles, everyone would walk over ... and making memories would begin. The whole house was loud and full of life. We all squeezed around the long table and every few minutes someone would raise their glass and make a fabulous toast. After dinner, off came the shoes, we would head down to the basement, crank the stereo and dance for hours on end. I can't even explain the magical and beautiful times we would have. It was perfect. I miss it.

During those special days, I was far from my Sydney home, the music industry wasn't giving us much work, I was working part time at a job I hated, and we didn't have much money. Basically we had a little bit of faith, friends we didn't deserve ... and pasta. The effort we would all put into making our Italian Nights something special and unforgettable have made those days some of the best of my life so far.

I think life is about that - making something extraordinary happen in the day to day with what you have in your hand. And I think no matter how hard it all gets sometimes, no matter how messy you find your life, heart, family, finances, soul (or all of the above) we must still always believe in something bigger than ourselves, cook good food, eat pasta, be with friends who are like family (you know - those sacred ones who make you feel like you make the world a bit better by existing) and keep having dance parties in the basement in the dark with fairy lights on.

I think things like this make life a little bit less hard.

a chipped wedding ring

My husband's wedding ring is chipped on one side. He took a chunk out of it while doing what he does best... playing slide guitar. Sometimes I think the chip is a bit trashy, but I actually kind of like it. It reminds me that often the best things about us aren't necessarily the neat, polished, perfect and pretty things. It's the rough-around-the-edges stuff that gives us cred in life - the scars prove we have had some good times and some bad times - we've been to war and made it out alive. I don't know what your chipped wedding ring is, but cherish it.

Bob and I were watching a movie the other called "Beginners" (more about the movie later), and I was reminded of this brilliant beyond brilliant quote from The Velveteen Rabbit. It's a conversation between the Rabbit and Skin Horse...

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

"I suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive.

But the Skin Horse only smiled.

something for love

and every day I am happy to be with you, my dear
sitting opposite each other sipping coffee
waking up to you
saying goodnight to you
dreaming as I lay next to you
driving in the car with you-
solving our problems
one ride at a time

and you, my dear,
will never go away
and I will never go away
and we will be the same two lovers
song-birds, even,
singing our songs of hope

it will never end
and we will go on singing
until we finally arrive where we are heading
home.

what makes you happy

I really had a great childhood. My Italian mother raised me with faith in my heart, took me to the theatre and gave me my love for coffee and clothes. My father was a rock and roll musician and put music in my bones.

Like all of us, life has broken my heart a few times, and so I've come to realize that there are things in life that make you happy. And it's these things (that make you happy) that you must hold on to with all of your heart and strength.

This little blog will reflect the people, places and times in my life that make me happy and bring me hope despite the messy, broken world I happen to share with you gorgeous people.