On Hindsight and Perspective

I don’t really like who I was as a teenager.

No, really. If you ask me, I was pretty awful. I was over-confident and over-emotional at the same time, extremely distrustful and intolerant of people I didn’t like, too assured of my own intelligence while simultaneously riddled with self-doubt. I was moody and impatient, quick to anger and quicker to slump into discontent, but I also thought I was better than most of my peers, smarter, more mature, better equipped for the world. I was trying to be older than I was, and the result was an awkward, contradictory mess.

If I had my way, pretty much everything between the ages of 11 and 17 would be struck from my record. It would save me a lot of cringing if I never had to think about those years again.

That’s my memory of it. But perspective is a wonderful thing.

A few weeks ago, while shopping for a friend’s birthday present, I wandered into my local Typo, a store that sells quirky stationary and hipstery home decor. While browsing through galaxy-print notebooks, a quiet voice broke the silence.

“Hannah?” it asked. “Your name is Hannah, right?”

The pretty girl behind the counter was looking at me, half-smiling. I nodded.

“I was in your dance class,” she said. “Intermediate contemporary. I’m Isabella”.

I danced for fourteen years, but towards the end of high school I ruptured a disc in my spine, which put an end to my pirouettes and arabesques. It’s been a long time since I was in intermediate contemporary. To my shame, I couldn’t remember her.

“I was a couple of years younger than you,” she said. “I moved to the intermediate class because I got too tall. I was terrified. I knew nobody. And the first class of the year, you invited me to warm up with you. You helped me with my extensions. You taught me how to hold a backbend. I wanted to quit because the ballet girls scared me, but you were nice to me. I only kept coming because you were nice to me”.

I remember that. I remember the quiet girl I stretched with. I talked a lot, and she didn’t say much, but we warmed up together before every class, working on our form and core. I hadn’t realised I was helping her. I hadn’t realised she was so scared, so in need of a friend. I hadn’t realised that I’d become that friend, or that after such a long time she’d remember the chatty girl who could never quite do the splits. I kind of wanted to cry.

In hindsight, I’ve long hated who I was as a teenager. But I’ve always have a tendency to obsess over my mistakes, to focus on where I went wrong rather than where I went right, to overthink things and make them much bigger than they are.

Not everybody sees things the same way. Not everybody remembers your embarrassments and awkwardness. Some people remember your kindness, your good deeds and successes. Some people remember that you were nice to them in dance class. And years later, when you meet as adults, some people help you put things in perspective.

Ten Reasons To Exist

Confession – I am a U2 fan.

I have been ever since I was 7 or 8 years old, still waking up early on weekends to watch Video Hits, and saw four guys playing on a runway, jet planes soaring over their heads while the singer, clad in black leather and wraparound shades, told me it was a beautiful day. This guy was swinging down escalators and riding the luggage carousel. I’d always wanted to do that. This was the coolest thing I’d ever seen.

My parents broke the news gently – the planes probably weren’t real, and these guys were not a new band. It didn’t dampen my excitement. They were playing on a runway. This was still the coolest thing I’d ever seen.

As a teenager, these boys and their music become very important to me. I wasn’t a happy high schooler, but their songs helped. “Beautiful Day” made me get out of bed in the morning. “City of Blinding Lights” helped me look in the mirror without shame. “Mysterious Ways” made me feel powerful when it was easier to feel helpless. I cannot count the number of times I wailed along with “Bad” or screamed to “Acrobat”. In my darkest moments, I would play “Stuck In A Moment” and let the song slap me into shape, convince me to get back up and keep going. If it was my last six minutes on Earth, I would listen to “Where the Streets Have No Name” and leave this life content.

It is difficult to properly express what the music, and the men behind it, mean to me. They did not change my life, per se, but made me realise I had the power to change it myself. Bono said it himself – “Our music is not something to lie down to, to get out of to, to die to, to commit suicide to. It’s not a soundtrack to a nervous breakdown”. There is joy in their music. There is pain and loss, heartbreak and fear and anger, yes. But underneath it all, joy.

In the past few weeks there’s been a lot of talk about the band and their new album. On the back of their Golden Globe win and Oscar loss, speculation about songs and tours is rife and, for the most part, contradictory. It’s due out in April. It’ll be released next year. It’s coming in the Summer. It’s not coming at all.  Maybe, after nearly 40 years, they should just pack it in. About the only thing anyone can agree on is the rumoured title – Ten Reasons to Exist

By the time the album comes out – and the band insist it will be this year – the title will almost certainly have changed, but for people like me, it is surprisingly apt. We all have low moments. We all go through the ups and downs, the result of our circumstances or of the chemical defaults so often inherent to begin human. We all need things that help us through. Our reasons to exist.

For me, it’s things like waking up on a wet Sunday morning and huddling under the covers while the rain falls, or making a really good laksa after craving it for days. It’s things like wearing a new pair of shoes for the first time and feeling like a rock star, or the squirm in the pit of your gut just as your plane leaves the ground, or your dog curling up with you an falling asleep on your feet. It’s things like writing that next chapter and hugging your mum and peeling the shrink wrap off that new album by your favourite band just before listening to it for the first time.

There was a time a few years back when I was a little ashamed to admit my love for U2. In spite of, or perhaps because of, being the biggest band in the world, it’s very uncool to like them. Nowadays, I refuse to feel guilty about something that makes me happy. There’s too little joy in the world to worry about seeming ‘uncool’. When you find something that makes you happy, whether it’s counting down to your next holiday or going home to your family each night or waiting for next week’s episode of Downton Abbey, you should never feel ashamed of it.

Just over ten years after I first saw U2 playing on a runway with CGI planes taking off over their heads, I finally saw them in the flesh. An enormous, clawed spaceship towered over us, a massive screen descended from above. Bridges moved over the audience, Oprah got a shout out, and that singer, still wrapped in leather and shades, swung over the crowd hanging from a steering-wheel microphone, his laser studded jacket a blur of red. We lit up that stadium, turned it into a field of stars while they played for us, and it was, without doubt, the coolest thing I’d ever seen.

Bests and Favourites

Today, as with most Mondays, lunch-break conversation turned to the weekend just passed. I happily told my colleagues about my Saturday night in the city for a dear friend’s 21st, and my Sunday afternoon at the theatre seeing Coriolanus for another dear friend’s 21st.

“Is that the one who lives up the coast?” my workmate asked.

“No,” I answered. “Saturday was the one from university. Sunday was the one from high school”.

“Which is the one from up the coast?” he asked, by now a little confused.

“Olivia,” I said. “And her 21st was last year”.

While he laughed, I realised, not for the first time, how bad I am at nominating bests and favourites. Ask me to name my favourite book and I forget literally every book I’ve ever read. ‘What’s your favourite food?’ is an impossible question. And, as I’d just proven, I have a good handful of people who I introduce as my best friend.

Ever since I left high school and could suddenly choose who I spent my time with, I’ve found the concept of ‘best friends’ limiting and outdated. I expanded my social circles; I found people I genuinely liked, rather than people who just happened to be in my class. I left friends behind and made new ones. When the world was suddenly full of beautiful, clever, interesting people, why would I want to limit myself to one, to pick one and say ‘this one is best’? My friends are wonderful, gifted, lovely people with so much to offer, and every single one of them has helped change me and my life for the better. I have people I am closer to, people I spend more time with – but choosing a ‘best’ friend would, to me, devalue the impact these amazing individuals have had in my world.

Nowadays, I have a circle of friends who, if pressed, I would call my bests. My oldest friend, Alice, my nap time neighbour from pre-school. Lara, my first high school friend who saved me a seat in seventh grade science. Olivia, from uni, who I wish I’d met earlier. Angela, the friend of a friend who became my friend. Sam, my first real guy friend. Liam, who I started out hating. Every one of them is important to me. Every one of them holds a special place in my life.

The same can be said for other ‘favourites’. Films? The Lord of the Rings, my first grown-up movie. The Avengers, which I shamelessly adore. Only Lovers Left Alive, which I first saw last week and fell immediately in love with. Bands? Coldplay, my first real concert. Imagine Dragons, my new love. U2, my first and forever favourites. Books? Harry Potter, who I grew up with. The Fault in Our Stars, which I read because everyone else was. Good Omens, which I never expected to love.

Even cities and countries are impossible to order. I love New York, in summer and later at Christmas. But then I remember London, eight years old, meeting my family for the first time. And Paris, mangling the language with my tiny tongue and mastering it years later. Brussels in the snow, celebrating the end of high school. Queenstown, learning to ski. Tromso, under the Northern Lights. Stockholm and Copenhagen and the train between the two.

The reason I struggle so much with ‘bests’ and ‘favourites’, I think, is because I have been so very fortunate for someone still so young. I have met incredible people who I am lucky enough to call my friends. I’ve devoured books and films and music with an insatiable appetite, savouring every word and note. I’ve been some truly remarkable places and done some truly remarkable things. I’ve never gone hungry. I’ve always had choice. I can’t pick the one thing I enjoy best of all because, I think, I’ve been blessed with opportunities and experiences that make the list too long to narrow down.

This is not a complaint, not even close. The fact that I struggle to choose favourites is only evidence of how deeply lucky I have been.

I’m not concerned with labelling my best friends or picking my favourite films or ranking cities from best to worst. I choose instead to enjoy everyone who enters my life for what they bring to it, to watch films and read books and listen to all the music I can, to eat good food and go new places when the chance comes my way.

I am very, very lucky to lead the life I lead.

Picking bests and favourites from such a wealth of wonders seems almost petty in comparison.

Don’t Freak Out

I’ve been telling myself this a lot lately. Don’t freak out. Don’t panic. You’re just fine. Fine, as they say, stands for Freaked out, Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional. When dealing with anxiety, the line between fine and FINE can be very thin indeed.

A lot of people deal with anxiety at some point or another, and everyone has their own triggers and their own ways of managing. I’m staring down the barrel of adulthood, and it’s quite possibly the most intimidating thing I’ve ever done. Sometimes I feel unprepared for being a grown up. Like someone somewhere is about to realise they’ve made a terrible mistake, revoke my Certified Adult card and send me back to adolescence for a few more years until I’m ready for the world.

I’ve been drifting back and forth between fine and FINE. Most days the rational part of my mind wins out. I remember that things are not as bad as I think they are, I try to keep things in perspective. Sometimes, though, the worry wins, and all my uncertainties and stresses pile up until it’s hard to see anything past my own fears.

The good news is that I’m much better at recognising this than I was a few years ago. I realise when I’m spiralling, I understand when I’m letting irrationality win over and I know what steps I can take to avoid the crash. I know how to take care of myself and put procedures in place to manage my worry. While everyone copes with worry in their own ways, there’s a few things everyone should consider before acting when anxious.

• Are you hungry and/or thirsty? If your body is stressed, your mind will follow. Make sure you’re giving your body what it needs. Keep it well fuelled and cared for. Quick fixes like sugar and caffeine are a bad idea.
• Are you sleepy? Sleep is basically the human equivalent of “Have you tried turning it off and back on again?”, and more often than not, it works. Stress can make it hard to sleep, so natural aids like herbal teas or valerian may help.
• Are you lonely? Have you spoken to anyone today? It’s good to have your own space, but isolation can be counter productive. Talk to someone. Hug your dog. Bribe someone to cuddle with you. Contact is a good thing.
• Are you comfy? Take a shower. Brush your teeth. Do your hair and get dressed, even if you’re not going anywhere. Work on feeling good in your own skin.
• Are you doing something? A lazy day watching back to back episodes of Game of Thrones can be a good idea. It can also be a trap. When you’re doing nothing and feeling unproductive, it’s easy to spiral into despair and anxiety. Go for a walk, bake a cake, write something, do your laundry – keep busy. Give yourself purpose. Deny boredom its power.

I’ve figured out what methods of self-care work best for me. Usually it involves cleaning out the fridge and scrubbing the shower, or curling up under a heavy blanket with an exceptionally large cup of tea. I’ve learned to take control of the things I can so the things I can’t don’t overwhelm me.

Sometimes I tread the line between fine and FINE, but more often than not these days I lean towards the former. I know myself better. I know how to take care of myself, and that may honestly be my biggest achievement from the past few years. 

Not for you: movies, marketing and why girls need heroes too

Last weekend I was somewhat reluctantly recruited to help my mother on her latest expedition to Costco. I try to avoid being sucked into these trips because, in the past, I’ve found some frankly ridiculous things there that I’m ashamed to say I’ve purchased – the oversized stuffed ladybug comes to mind. Still, when I found myself stuck pushing around that enormous trolley, I couldn’t help scanning the shelves for things I don’t need but really really want.

Predictably, it was Iron Man that caught my eye.

Predictably, Iron Man and his super friends were plastered all over backpacks and stationary that was very obviously meant for someone much younger, and much more male, than me.

I don’t begrudge four year old boys their Captain America pyjamas or their Batman lunch boxes.

I do begrudge the outdated marketing style that decided that four year old boys were the only people who enjoyed superheroes.

As a child I was fortunate to be raised by parents who didn’t much care for gendered toys. I collected stuffed toys and kept my hand-crafted doll house immaculate. I also idolised my big brother and wanted to be just like him, so insisted on having my own Batman costume. Evidence, perhaps, that I have always had an affinity for superheroes. And, if the recent surge in comic-based movies is anything to go by, I’m far from alone. The Avengers, the biggest superhero film perhaps ever, was marketed as a explosion-riddled, city destroying, action packed blockbuster. Yet on its opening weekend, 40% of its audience was female, and half were aged over 25.

Yet comics, films and their merchandise continue to be marketed almost exclusively at the pre-teen boy market. Even though women make up more than half of theatre goers. Even though the vast majority of fans who engage with media on a deeper level – the artists and writers and critics who fuel their audience long after the film has finished its run – are female. Even though female fans have been campaigning for a proper female superhero solo movie for just about ever – Wonder Woman is right there guys, let her do something!

Naysayers might cite the fairly awful Elektra (2005) and the outright terrible Catwoman (2004) as evidence of why female superheroes ‘don’t work’. They gave you a lady hero and it was a disaster! No wonder they don’t want to do it again!

In turn, I would cite Xena: Warrior Princess and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I would cite Anne Hathaway’s Catwoman and, of course, Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff (without whom, I might point out, the Avengers would never have been assembled, the God of Lies would never have been outwitted, the portal would never have been closed). I would cite Charmed and The Hunger Games and Charlie’s Angels and Kim Possible and The Powerpuff Girls. To those who say that female-driven action franchises are a recipe for failure, I would say, the women aren’t the problem.

(Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow from Iron Man 2)

The problem is lazy writing that relies on love triangles and stock characters over engaging stories and character agency. The problem is producers who would rather stick to a done-to-death formula than inject new life into the genre. The problem is female heroes who are sold as sexy and sassy instead of strong and serious. The problem is women who, to be strong, must be stripped of all femininity, who must, in all but body, be men. The problem is marketing that believes women are more likely to see the same vapid rom-com six dozen times before they see a woman kicking ass, that women are more interested in stories of unrequited love and overly dramatic affairs than seeing a woman save the world, with or without a man by her side.

The problem is teaching girls from such a young age that, because they are girls, certain toys and certain stories are not for them.

The simple fact is that in this day and age it is completely unacceptable to sell stories of adventure and heroism to our boys while feeding our girls a steady diet of romance and domesticity. There is nothing wrong with fairytales and princess and tea parties with mismatched dolls. But for every girl who wants to be Barbie there’s another who wants to be Batman. If we never give our girls the chance to even see Wonder Woman or Xena or the Black Widow taking charge of their own movie, we are robbing them of a chance to be the superheroes of their own stories.

Girls have been playing the sidekick long enough. It’s time we gave them a chance to take the spotlight, to have their own story, fight their own bad guys, to save the day instead of always being saved. Girls need to see Thor’s hammer sold alongside Sleeping Beauty’s dress, to wear Spiderman’s mask and Cinderella’s slippers and know that’s okay. Girls need to be shown that they can be the princess and the warrior and the wife and the hero and the genius and even, sometimes, the bad guy. And girls need to see other girls doing this, in their books, in their cartoons, in their movies, just like the boys.

A Stranger in a Strange Land

Last week I was in London. Which is very strange to consider, when this week I am back in summery Sydney, back to work and job hunting and fighting university to confirm my graduation. Last week, I was in London, and felt utterly at peace, more content and at-home than I feel in my own city now.

(St. Paul’s Cathedral, personal photo)

This is partly, I’m sure, due to the general peace and contentment of being on holiday, where the stresses and troubles of everyday life seem impossibly far away and if you try, you can convince yourself you never have to go back to answering email and cleaning the kitchen and skipping breakfast to make it to work. But part of it, I know, was due simply to the fact that I was in London, and to me, London has always felt like a home. Like if I could be there forever, the email and cleaning and missed meals wouldn’t seem so bad.

Mostly everybody says they love London, in my experience. They love Big Ben or Hyde Park or the shopping, and I enjoy these touristy past times as much as the next traveller. But for me, the real joy of London lies in the streets, the cobbles and concrete, dodging through crowds, snippets of half-cuaght conversations, a melting pot of accents and languages. It’s in the rattle of underground cars, the colourful web of tube lines, the maze of tunnels and platforms and the polite voice telling you to mind the gap. It’s the not-quite-fresh breeze of the Thames, the crisp quiet of mornings before the commute, the sheen of light rain that turns pavements into mirrors, the glass and chrome growing from stone.

While I did my share of typically touristy things – a visit to the treasure room of the British library, something I’d never thought to do on my previous trips and well worth going out of my way for – I opted out of returning to the British Museum or riding the London Eye, choosing instead to load up my Oyster card and pound the pavement between tube stations. I made my way, west to east, across the City of Westminster. I have always preferred to see cities from the streets, amongst people and noise and movement. I am not immune to a spot of shopping – there is nothing quite like H&M in Australia, and I took the chance to stock up on knitwear – but, for the most part, my days were spent exploring, often with no goal in mind, happy to wander and stumble across stores and cafes and views worth immortalising on camera.

It was in these wanderings that I theorised there is a delicate difference between a tourist and a traveller. A tourist revels in the unfamiliar, delights in the foreignness of their surrounds. A traveller prefers to adapt, to try and blend in and enjoy a place as its own people might. Neither is necessarily superior to the other, but I know where I fall. Crossing Millennium Bridge with my headphones in and my discreet camera out, a small part of me was pretending, for a few days, that this is where I belonged. I wanted to be absorbed into the city, to be lost amongst Londoners, to never have to leave.

Maybe it’s because I never quite felt like I belonged in Australia. Maybe it’s because a bare half-a-generation ago, London was my family’s home. Maybe it’s because I prefer the grey cold and stone buildings, maybe I was drawn to the efficiency of the underground network, or maybe I’ve just watched too many BBC dramas and have horribly romanticised a city that, at its core, is not truly different from any other. But every time I leave London, I know it won’t be long before I return. I feel to comfortable there, too at peace, to never return.

Do not get me wrong – I am glad to be home. I sorely missed my own bed and my own bathroom, access to my full wardrobe of clean clothes and my own brand of tea. I missed odd things, like home made lasagne, my usual washing powder and Sydney tap water. I missed my dog. And the first weeks of my trip, through Arctic wilderness and Scandinavian cities, was a wonderful experience, an incredible trip I would not have traded for extra time in England’s capital. But, to me, London is special.

I’m sure, in a year, or two, or five, I will find myself there again, hopefully that time with an ancestry visa in hand and an unfixed return ticket, ready to submerge myself in that city like I’ve longed to for many years. I’m sure many native Londoners would think me insane, and to them I say I’m well aware of my own ridiculousness. But while I go about my days in Sydney, back in the familiar humdrum of home, my thoughts too often turn to my travels and the urge to go back only grows stronger.

In the meantime, I am grateful for my experiences abroad. For a time, at least, they make me appreciate home. When I see tourists excited to cross the Harbour Bridge on my train, or travellers taking selfies in Darling Harbour, I have a little more patience for them than I did before. These aren’t just people pouring awkwardly over maps and blocking my footpath – they’re explorers enjoying something new, something beautiful, as I was a week ago in London, and maybe, just maybe, one of them feels the same way about the city I am fortunate enough to, for the time being, call my home.

Holidays in the Heat

Ahhh, Christmas in Australia. While seemingly everyone is singing about snow and reindeer and chestnuts roasting on an open fire, I’m hiding in the house, curled up in the darkest, shadiest corner I can find because the very air is on fire.

I might be exaggerating. But not by much.

This Aldi ads offers an accurate representation of an Australian Christmas (http://www.adrants.com/2012/12/surfing-santas-celebrate-aussie.php)

It is obscenely, maddeningly, oppressively hot. The kind of hot that makes you feel sleepy and lazy and a little bit drunk, and you want to do nothing more than lie under a fan and drink pitcher after pitcher of iced tea while cicadas drone endlessly outside. Two minutes of movement is enough to send you sweating and flushed, and you’re sorely tempted to take about six showers a day just to rid yourself of the stale sweat grime that you can feel building up on your skin.

Ew.

Yet this is our Christmas. We feast on cherries and prawns and pavlova, we sweat our way through midnight service, the braver of our kind slather themselves in SPF40 and take to the beaches. It is, invariably, a long, hot day. If we’re lucky, a storm rolls in late in the afternoon to break the heat for a little while.

I am not well suited to this climate. I half the year wishing summer would end, and the other half dreading summer’s return. But this is how my Christmas has always been – a curious clash of the idealised white christmas and the inevitability of the December heat. Our stores still decorate with snowflake motifs, we still sing winter-themed carols, our tvs still play those terrible made-for-tv movies where the overworked dad gets snowed in at the airport and learns the meaning of Christmas. But we take an odd kind of pride in our sweltering holiday season.

Last year, for the first time, I had a white Christmas. I spent the holidays in New York. I did my gift shopping at Macys, I went skating in the park in the snow, I watched Miracle on 34th Street in my apartment on 34th Street. It was a fantastic holiday, one I will never forget. I loved the city, I loved the cold and the snow, I loved the holiday spirit, the Christmas markets, the store windows – it was incredible, and I truly hope I will have the opportunity to experience it again in my lifetime.

But it was undeniably strange. It was, quite clearly, Christmas, but it did not feel like it. I did not miss the heat, as such, but I noticed its absence. I missed my bucket of prawns on ice, my mimosas with breakfast, my summer fruits and homemade trifle and wearing one of my many pretty summer dresses to Christmas Mass.

I’m going away next week, right up to the Arctic, leaving this godawful heat behind. But I have to admit, I’m glad I’m not missing my Australian Christmas again. It’s nothing you’ll see printed on a postcard, enshrined in a snow globe or immortalised in carols, but it’s ours.

Merry Christmas, happy holidays and a joyous new year to all.

xx

A guide to failing NaNoWriMo

Pro tip: don’t voluntarily take on the challenge of writing 50 000 words in 30 days while simultaneously trying to finish your degree. It doesn’t end well.

This year was my first attempt at NaNoWriMo. With two days and 20 000 words left, I can say with certainty that I’m not going to make it. I spent the first half of the month trying to squeeze in writing around working on the final assignments of my degree. Needless to say, my creative work was far more interesting that 12 pages of Renaissance literature analysis, and I frequently had to force myself to work rather than write. For a while, I was pretty much on track, but those last few essays broke my stride, and I never recovered. By the time my last assignments were submitted, I couldn’t stand the thought of sitting before my laptop for a moment longer.

That being said, NaNo did teach me about my own process. I found myself more motivated to complete uni work because I wanted to write in the evenings, which were by far my most productive hours. There were many late nights, which were oddly satisfying. I took to writing on my phone during train trips and lunch breaks to make the most of that down time and get ideas on the page while they were fresh.

NaNo forced me to stop thinking about writing and just write the damn thing already, and for that alone I’m glad I took on the challenge. Sure, the 50 odd single-spaced pages I have at the moment probably aren’t very good – I haven’t gone back to read them yet – but some day, with a bit of work, they might be. I’m hoping that what I’m working on now might eventually be worth pushing to publication. I’ve always wanted to write like this, I’ve had these ideas bouncing around my head for years, and finally, finally putting them on the page feels amazing. I’ve learned better habits. I’ve learned that a little bit written each day is better than nothing at all.

I’ve had my fair share of rolled eyes and heavy sighs when I tell people that I’m writing a YA contemporary fantasy novel where my heroine joins the fight for magic-users’ rights, constantly being asked ‘Don’t you want to write real literature?”, but I’ve more or less become immune to it. I love what I’m writing. I’m enjoying it. And right now, at this stage of the work, that’s what matters.

I haven’t won NaNo this year, but it has helped me achieve more with my writing in 30 days than I’ve managed in the past three years. At the end of the day, I suppose that’s not really a failure at all

November is nearly over, but my novel is far from finished.

Music To My Eyes

Last week, I bought Brian Tyler’s score for Marvel’s Thor: The Dark World. I already had tickets to an advance-screening of the highly anticipated film, and listened to the soundtrack eager for a teaser of what was to come. I was not disappointed. When the album had played through, I plucked out my earphones, took a deep breath and sent my best friend a message saying “This  movie is going to be awesome”.

Some people judge books by their covers. I judge movies by their music.

 

(images from http://www.soundtrackmania.com/thor-the-dark-world-soundtracklist.html)

This may seem a little strange, but it has not failed me yet. Thor: The Dark World was indeed awesome. It’s soundtrack had not led me astray. Music is as much a tool of communication as speech or text, one simply has to know how to read it. Or listen to it, I suppose.

You cannot listen track by track or cherry pick certain tunes and ignore others. That would be like reading the third, seventh and ninth chapter of a book, and expecting to understand the story. I need a straight run at it, an hour or so to experience it properly, no skipping or fast forwarding. You listen to it unfold, like watching the movie itself. You need a comfy chair so you won’t be distracted by how much your back hurts, and something to keep your hands busy, a book or a journal, but nothing that requires your full attention. Get a good pair of headphones – nothing fancy, just a comfy pair with decent sound – and hit play.

The best film music is powerful, but not overpowering. When you listen to it you shouldn’t even notice it’s there, not until the strings swell or the brass kicks up and the choirs sing and you’re forced to sit up and pay attention. There will come a moment when the music makes you straighten your spine, makes the hair on your arms stand on end. In the movie, it’s the moment when the beacons of Minas Tirith are being lit, when the Avengers stand together facing down alien hordes or the Black Pearl sails triumphantly into battle against the Royal Navy.

It’s those moments that set film music apart from instrumental music – the moments of characters and story and scenery through the music, the cues you can match to moment in the film, the motifs that mirror your favourite characters, the themes that conjure a world in your imagination. This music has the power to make the ordinary extraordinary. 

I bought Ramin Djawadi’s Pacific Rim, and walking to the train became a march to face down monsters. Michael Giacchino’s Star Trek turns driving to work into piloting the Enterprise. Hans Zimmer’s Sherlock Holmes turns grocery shopping into crime-solving adventures through Victorian London. Is is fanciful and childish? Probably. But a well-chosen backing track can make the most mundane chores an adventure, and we could all use a little adventure in our lives.

A month or so ago, I received a call from a gentleman trying to sell me tickets to the Sydney Symphony’s 2014 season. It went something like this.

Him: I see you went to see Pirates of the Caribbean and The Return of the King with us this year.

Me: Yes, I like film music.

Him: You must be a music student then?

Me: Nope, I just like film music.

Looking back, I realise that’s not quite true. I like stories. And in my stories, music is just as important as words.

Flying North for the Winter

I’m one of those strange, strange people who cannot stand Summer. I do not handle heat well, and I’m so incredibly pale I will burn just looking out a window. I live for rainy winter days, foggy mornings, flannel pyjamas and long, cold nights. This has earned me more than my share of perplexed looks from my fellow Sydney-siders.

I sometimes have the feeling I was born on the wrong continent.

My approach to Australian summers has always been to hide in a dark, cool corner until the worst of it is over and emerge when it’s safe to go outside without roasting. In the past few years, however, my tactic has changed. While Australia bakes under the summer sun and my friends take gleefully to the beaches, I pack my bags and flee, taking refuge somewhere cold and snowy for the worst weeks of the heat. I’ve spent my past few summers happily basking in the icy climes of Brussels, London and New York.

This year a ridiculously hot summer is predicted in Australia, so in response, I’m going to the Arctic Circle.

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

I’m starting in Oslo, moving up the coast to Tromso then boarding a ferry up into the Arctic proper. We make land in Krikenes,  move down into central Finland, then to Helsinki and a quick side trip to Estonia. We move on to Stockholm, then catch the train down to Copenhagen, and finally fly to London for a few family events before, sadly, returning home to sunny, sweaty, sweltering Sydney. Urgh.

With a little luck, my icy retreat will look something like this –

(image from http://www.lonelyplanet.com/finland/lapland/ivalo/hotels)

With about two months to go til I flee North, I’m starting to tie up pre-travel loose ends. The last of my accommodation has been booked, I’ve bought my thermals, fleeces and winter accessories, I’ve got my travel essentials (tiny toiletries, aeroplane pillow, those little padlocks for your suitcase). I’ve got my various forms of kronor, I’ve bought theatre tickets for London, I’m getting my passport updated.

Because Australia is so far away from everywhere, international travel is always a production. Spending a month in far north Europe cannot be a last minute decision. My cousins in England take spur-of-the-moment trips with astonishing frequency, jetting off to New York, Denmark, Spain. That kind of lifestyle is unimaginable to me. I’ve been extremely blessed with opportunities to see the world, and because travel is so much more difficult for Australians, I’m very aware of how fortunate I am. Getting out of the country – and back into it – is an ordeal in itself. Getting anywhere is going to cost you an arm and a leg, clearing customs can take hours, and travelling to a iced-over winter wonderland when it’s 36 degrees in the shade at home requires a unique talent for packing and preparation.

I’ve been keeping an eye on the weather at my destinations, and within the last week or two, they’ve turned from chill autumn winds to seven straight days of sub-zero snow. Which is precisely what I’m excited about. The colder it is, the more I thrive. My travel buddies, however, are not quite as keen. When I announced it had recently been -12 C in Ivalo, the response went something like this

“Minus 12!! It’s only October! Can you imagine what it’ll be in January? We’re going to freeze! Are we insane? We must be insane”

And when I tell people I’m spending my summer in the Arctic, the general response is a resound “Why?”

The simple answer is, of course, “why not?”

For some people, travel isn’t worth the trouble. I know a good number of people who have no interest in seeing the world beyond their suburb, let alone the world beyond our shores. But for me, there is nothing more exciting than striking out in to the unknown and seeking adventure somewhere new. The thought of staying put, of never seeing something new, exploring a new place or experiencing a new culture, is terrifying. There is little I fear more than stagnation.

I’m down to planning the finer details of the trip, making lists of what to see and do in each city, weighing up reindeer sleigh rides against huskifaris. If anyone has travelled to the region before, I’d love your advice on what to do and where to go. 

In the meantime, the thought of snowy forests and icy fjords is all that’s getting me through my last few weeks of uni and the ever-rising temperature. I love my country. I adore my city. But I’m not built for Sydney summers. I’m happy to leave that to my beach-loving friends and mad British tourists. Flying North for the winter works for me.