The bigness of the world. Having space to see, dream and take in the vastly different experiences, perspectives and journeys people have.
In all its unprettiness as a word, “mind-boggling” is synchronous with “pleasurable”.
Creating one’s own private jazz club, with flickering red light from a table candle and jazz like mist courtesy of KCSM live streaming radio
Dirrty by Christina Aguilera
It was the end of my first year of university, I was back in Christchurch for the summer holidays. It had been a busy year filled with devoted attention to schoolwork and lessons in socialising and living with other newly-independents. To help me wind down and appreciate being young and carefree, my mum suggested I try out fun, new activities that summer, like how about windsurfing?
The lesson was booked.
On the day of my lesson I rocked up to the counter to be told that my instructor would be a few minutes late. No biggie. I sat down on the concrete path leading up to the shop entrance in wait. Ten minutes passed, behind me all was quiet in the shop, in front of me the estuary was awash in bright early afternoon light and making rhythmic little movements. Then, a young guy walked up towards me.
His hair was almost the same colour as his face, a caramel shade of honey. Whenever I try to imagine how that description must come across – tan hair blending into tan face – it sounds pukey, as if he were a Ken doll whose hair was left uncoloured. But on him it was beautiful. On him it looked like that was the key to beauty. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s been a while since my last update so here are some pictures taken yesterday 
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To get a sense of how the garden has developed over time here are the previous updates:
http://thinkingcoral.wordpress.com/2010/04/23/photos-from-my-first-ever-vege-garden/
and
http://thinkingcoral.wordpress.com/2010/06/18/vege-garden-update/
It’s crazy because now that I have the garden in this happy, flourishing state that it’s in, I find it hard to imagine that it was ever any different. It’s great to have these photos to look back on, though I am missing pictures of the original weedy wilderness it was when I first started with it.
Watching footage of baby sloths
My brother has been busy with the posts, recently giving us the reflective Diva, Diva! here and the evocative Mr. Moon here. Mum has also gotten in on the act, which now brings her blog roster up to three. You are a greedy magpie
Please turn the volume right up for this one.
Amphetamine by Everclear
I know I was 13 when Everclear featured large in my life because I basically had a different group of friends for each year of high school, and when I see the star-spangled green Everclear CD I see myself interacting with particular girls.
Our group of friends went through a short-lived phase of bringing CDs to school to play to each other, an idea suggested by the closest-to-Indy member of our group. On one occasion I brought Jamiroquai’s Travelling Without Moving, which I believe was received quite well. In fact, I think it ended up on loan to two friends for a few weeks. On the next I brought Everclear’s Sparkle and Fade. Note: Both CDs were my brother’s, I remember slyly stealing them early in the morning before anyone else was up. Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve just added two blogs to my blogroll:
and
Life before plastic is a second blog from my mum, its name says exactly what it’s about. I’m finding it very illuminating, and it seems like she’s got a lot more material to come.
Enjoy!
Tomber la chemise by Zebda
This was THE song when I was in Tahiti on exchange as part of a group of Kiwi french students. If it wasn’t this song playing then it was instrumental polynesian music that bounced and rolled and pushed onwards like a speeding minivan on dirt roads. Perhaps my inability to remember that instrumental music precisely is what makes Tomber la chemise my cord to Tahiti.
Tomber la chemise puts me in the back of my host family’s truck bumping along to a relative’s house. Jumping down from it, being surrounded by lush greenness, climbing up to a house elevated from the ground and staring at a simultaneously gorgeous and intimidating raw fish dish. Getting a quick lesson from my host’s wiry male cousin on the verb “draguer”*.
The song feels especially right when seeing myself on the back of the truck as it started to rain. Rain, real island rain of fat droplets. I had assumed that I and the two others at the back were screwed, but no, we were duly handed our black rubbish bags. Little black cone-shaped boulders … “Tous les enfants de ma cité, et même d’ailleurs!” I would peek out every so often to watch other vehicles carrying little black boulders pass by, and attempted to keep getting friendly waves – the usual custom between back-of-the-truck passengers passing each other, at least when unencumbered by rubbish bag. Jumbly and happy and entertained as hell, *plat* *plat* *splat* *splodge*, “Tomber la! Tomber! Tomber la che-mi-se!”
*draguer = to hit on someone
A couple of days ago as we rejoiced in an online chat over cheesy reggaeton and Belinda Carlisle’s “Heaven is a place on earth”, my brother suggested we parallel post on the topic of music memory. There have been many times in the past when he has remarked on how the song that’s on makes him think back to a particular time in his life or to a person. You can read his first post on this here:
http://livinginj-town.blogspot.com/2010/10/blog-post.html
I haven’t written in a long while so I’ll do these as a series of short posts. Please feel free to play the song before, during or after reading…
One Headlight by The Wallflowers
This music memory is comparatively new. The first time I heard this song and fell in love with it was when I was in high school. The link between it and that time of my life exists but it is faint, like a lightbulb glowing on its own at the end of a long, narrow hallway. The real association was created 2 years ago.
I had backed out of our driveway, halfway out of our cul-de-sac when One Headlight came on. “Awesome!!”, I declared as I turned the volume right up. There are select songs whereby the moment I hear them I feel touched by an all-knowing, benevolent force, one who has decided to let me know that today is my turn for a great day. Read the rest of this entry »
The combination of garlic and ginger.
