"Welcome to the Party"

December 2016

July 2016

 March 2016

Last Tuesday, I would not have at all predicted that in a week's time I'd be writing to say that I'm going to study this year. For many years, I have loved photography - a passion that actually started from blogging. Since knowing that I was moving to Brisbane, I've been eyeing off a photography course available at Tafe. After studying a short hospitality course there, I was absolutely fixated on the idea.
Tafe is a wonderful environment - being there was one of the happiest times of my life; getting out there and meeting people and doing stuff; showing up and not knowing what hands-on learning situation I was about to be thrown into; being challenged to put myself out there to get experience in a number of places; watching myself face adventures that scared the hell out of me, and doing them anyway.

However, for a long time I have been adamant that I wasn't going to study this year. I had a lot of reasons: I wanted to keep working and get as much barista experience as possible while I was still considered a junior, I wanted to save up because owing money terrified me, and "I just need a bit more time" - but the main reason, unbeknownst to me, was because I was scared. I didn't feel ready. I felt as though I needed to be my best self - to be perfect- before doing something so incredibly exciting and daunting, which of course would be impossible. My mum would question me about it from time to time, only to be met with me stubbornly not wanting to discuss it further. It's odd that I never realised how terrified I was, especially as someone with anxiety who pretty much expects to find anything and everything chillingly, sickeningly scary. In retrospect, so many of the things I thought about doing that didn't seem like an option had the very simplified reason of "I can't do that". Only now have I stopped and wondered "Why the fuck not?". And fear was all it was. The idea of taking a step was met with subconscious fear that made me think it was this impossible thing, no questions asked, it just was.

Wednesday last week, I was on the phone to a potential employer. He asked me if I was planning on studying this year, and my answer was the usual: "not at all". Shortly after putting the phone down, I told my mum I wanted to study. This year. Y'know...the course I said I didn't want to do right now...that starts in 12 days? Yeah that one. So, within two days, my portfolio and application letter was put together, printed out, handed in, assessed, and I was offered a place in the program. Yesterday my student loan was set up and I was enrolled and told "Welcome to the Party".

Orientation for my class is tomorrow (fuck) and I begin next week (double fuck, triple fuck, all the fucks). Obviously, I'm terrified, but it's that kind of intense, near-paralyzing fear that, if you're perceptive, you know you feel because you're at the start of something as daunting as it is exciting. In the midst of all these emotions and overthinky thoughts is also a sense, felt with the same certainty that I get from the reassuring weight of a camera in my hand, that I'm exactly where I need to be.

Pictures above are self portraits taken with the self timer on my first (and only, up until last week) camera - a trusty little cherry red touristy Nikon L120. In the first shoot I'm wearing a pair of 1940's tap pants given to me by my mum a few Christmases ago, and posing with lights made ethically by Delightful Australia from leaf skeletons, gifted to me by a previous girlfriend of my dad's for my 16th birthday.
I think there is a lot of intimate, complex amazingness to self portraits (more on that later), and I very much enjoyed making these. I don't really know all the elements that make up a great photo, but I can feel my own creative potential, and am looking forward to growing from strength to strength in the year to come - and those following, as well. 

Transition - A Personal Post

Warning: this post contains cringe-worthy cliches about changes and lessons learned. 

Exactly a month ago, I did a very quick (and thus mysterious - sorry) post about some rather big changes ahead. It was written amidst lots of stressful packing - packing up a somewhat feral, but cherished house on a beautiful 18 acre property in the tiny sugar cane farming town of Childers, Queensland, to move into a tiny rental in the inner suburbs of the capital city of Queensland on a 600 square meter yard. Confronting.

If I had have been a better blog updater who wrote about personal stuff, I wouldn't be pondering what parts of the story to say right now. The story is a long one, and it's been a huge journey for me - one of those experiences that people tend to insert cheesy quotes in to make them seem more inspirational. But, while I don't regret it and it has shaped so much of who I am today (oh dear, oh dear, cliche already), it was utter shit.

My parents broke up towards the end of 2013, when I was about 14 and a half, roughly around the same time my older sister moved out of home; the house was to be sold; my mum got with a guy who lived in Brisbane; my dad seemed to have had a midlife crisis - I had a mid-teens crisis - we consoled each other; my mum and her boyfriend did slow, painful, hard work on the house to help sell it; it was sold; my beautiful horses went to a new (but lovely) home (hardest part); we moved. Condensing that down was hard, leaving so many of the details that made it so difficult: the depression/boredom (due to situation/location/isolation of living in Childers - I had two friends, one 2 hours away, another in America) that I had been dealing with even before my teen years - a year or so of me mostly lying on the couch, off in my own little world, hiding from the real world that seemed both too big to deal with and too small to be interesting; trying to sort out all the confusing emotions I suddenly did and didn't have about the situation, while going through puberty, worrying about pimples and boys and wondering if my left boob would catch up with my right (update: it did, but then the right one grew again and we're back to where we started - thought you might like to know); being confronted by the idea of living with someone who wasn't family, whose ways of communicating were so different to mine; days, weeks, months of my mum and I feeling stuck, talking in a numb attempt at sounding hopeful of "when we're in Brisbane".

Gosh, this sounds very whiny and negative, I know - and it kind of is, but it's also honest, much like my previous post in January. But now that that explaining is out of the road (I know I didn't need to, and I hope you're not too bored, but it was something I wanted to do - even to just look back on), I can tell you that while I'm still feeling raw, it feels as though all those little painful details that those years were comprised of finally feel like they can be let go: the pain now feeling more like an old husk and the lessons learned like a tree whose fruits will sustain me for the rest of my life. Also: Brisbane is fucking awesome. And I have plans.

I moved here with my mum Susan, our three chickens (Shiva, Gretel and Victoria Peckham), our 2 dogs (Abby and Cocoa), a bearded dragon named Gadzooks, and my mum's boyfriend Robert (has nicknames) on the fourth of February, and I'm still getting settled, but I'm also excited - really excited. So far it's looking like I'm going to be raising three more chickens while I wait for a course to start, then a Hospitality course at Tafe, after that I will hopefully get a decent job as a barista or waitress, then use my free time to focus on my creativity and enjoy all the culture Brisbane has to offer. Making friends and getting my driver's license is in there somewhere too.

Some more updates for clarification: my parents' relationship is still wonky and hard to deal with; my relationship with my parents (and my sister) is fantastic; my dad and I have gotten on top of our crises and are significantly less confused about life; my dad is happy; I am happy; my mum is happy; my mum's boyfriend and I still struggle with the combination of his non-confrontational attitude and my very-confrontational attitude and overall (accidental) bluntness, but we connect through a mutual appreciation of puns and wordplay and dogs; the horses have settled into their new home with lots of other horses, and my childhood pony Gerrie has himself a girlfriend, plus we can visit them whenever we want; my dogs are still confused about the concept of an 'outside pets only' house rental agreement; since checking 15 minutes ago, the left boob has not caught up with the right.

Something I'd like to add: This blog, the internet and the blogging community have been a total lifesaver for me - I am so thankful for it and am very much determined to keep this blog updated (if you're not too tired from this lengthy post, for a more eloquent praise of blogging, see here).

About the photos: The pictures were taken by me, and they are of my mum Susan, snapped early in January in the yard of our old house. They are un-edited, except for the black and white ones. The lovely golden duppy in the photo second from the bottom is Abby.

January

 

 I took these pictures much earlier in the year, planning to post them with a lot of thoughts on new years and how we respond to them, but due to the hectic nature of my new year, I haven't had the time, so I'll just leave you with these photos, as I still am very happy with them by themselves. My year is indefinitely going to be a huge one; filled with lots of plans, lots of the unknown (both an equal parts exciting and daunting), a truckload of stress and upset and change and hard work, but hopefully lots of happiness and rewarding days as well, and hopefully the time to keep my blog updated with all that's going on, and the creative endeavours that I hope to achieve. I hope you all have a great 2016. Happy (sort-of-still) New Year! x

Photos are all self portraits taken with the self timer on my Nikon L120 in front of my bathroom shower curtain.

In Appreciation of Blogging

August 2011

November 2011

December 2011

February 2012, my sister Ireland (left) and me playing Alice and The White Rabbit (and dancing, of course).

February 2012. Large fluffy tophats are important.

April 2012. Gerrie the pony has grass in his mouth, not a cigarette, just so you know...

(Dress is silk, from a charity shop. Frankie the chicken happened to be walking by).

July 2012

August 2012

December 2012

January 2013

February 2013. (Wearing some awkwardly sitting 40's tap pants).

April 2013

June 2013

This morning, I was properly appreciating a Saturday – by lazing around in bed. I then did something that I usually avoid, given the usual messy state of my room: I looked around. Clothes and books strewn everywhere; countless trinket boxes; a large amount of vintage leather bags hanging from my door (weighing down on the doorknob so much that my door doesn't actually close properly); and, on my wall, some cork boards. What I pinned to them probably hasn't changed in about four or more years; there are pictures of tigers, a pegasus, my dad as a kid with a very fat goat, way too many cheesy quotes, drawings of the skeleton from when I was ten and attempted to remember the names of every single bone in the human body, and, mysteriously, a folded up A4 piece of crisp, faded yellow paper. I had no idea what it was. It was clear I hadn't thought about that piece of paper in years. I experienced a feeling that I'd felt the day before when I looked through my blog for the first time in a long time. It was a feeling of fascination with a past me that I had forgotten about. If you’re wondering, the contents of the page were rather anticlimactic and made me question the state of my sanity the time that I pinned the paper up. I opened it, imagining all sorts of curious things, and found, in the middle of the page, written in blue pen by my then-messy handwriting, the word ‘something’. I have an inkling that maybe my younger self posted that there just to confuse my future (aka current) self. It certainly worked. 

But that’s not really the relevant bit here (and I've already rambled on enough about the encounter). It was that wonderful feeling of rediscovering who I was at another time. It got me thinking about blogging. And how great I've always thought it was that we can document parts of ourselves and our lives and our thoughts, saved for us to look back on later. A blog is different to Facebook in many ways, as it (or at least for me) is a place for more extended and deeper thoughts than where you got breakfast one Sunday in March 2012. I always loved the idea of keeping an actual journal (preferably a beautiful leather bound one that I wrote in with fancy handwriting), but never managed it. But for a while, I was really good at keeping a blog. I started blogging at twelve, and now, at sixteen, looking back is so amazing. I really enjoyed being able to have a place where I could see how I evolved in my thoughts and ways in a time period (my teenage years) where so much changes. It was better than photo albums compiled by my parents or the stories they tell me about how I used to be, because it was documentation of who I was, controlled solely by me - and the way I chose to document myself was yet another reflection of who I was.

Thinking about this made me sad that the ubiquity of my blog posts have simmered down to me having only posted once this year. I feel like it’s such an important thing to document how you felt at one point, because so often we forget. I've met many adults who remember being young, but not how it felt. And I'm scared of forgetting all these things, because I know how easy it is.

I hope that I manage to continue blogging. There are so many wonderful aspects of it, the retrospective part being just one of them. It’s so satisfying to type out my current thoughts; get feedback and other opinions in the comments; read the blogs of others; the whole process of taking pictures and thinking about how I will present myself, both in photos (my photography and photos of me) and in writing, and thinking about what to write and how to start and how to end, and finally pressing 'publish'; reviewing; wondering what I’ll post next.

The photoshoots are the best though. I love photography. I think one day I'd like to be a photographer. When I started my blog, it was from my sister Ireland’s encouragement. She already had a blog, and she’d asked me to help her take photos for it (at the time I wasn't even that interested in photography). We started with some badly lit pictures of her on our veranda in some impossibly high heels, then moved on to her styling me as well as herself, and us taking pictures of each other, then, looking through our mum’s old clothes and the hoards of vintage she had been collecting since before we were born. Picture taking became more frequent and more daring. Poses were made in the garden, up trees, in the paddocks, with cows, with horses, with chickens. She helped me start my blog, even named it for me, and directed me to all the blogs she followed and took inspiration from. We both developed our own styles, but for the photoshoots, we always teamed up and had a lot of fun. We were always so different, even though we’d wished we were twins, so it was a great way for us both to connect before the time we matured enough to accept and celebrate our differences.
I would definitely say that blogging has played a huge part in shaping who I am today. It made me begin to use the internet for more intellectual reasons, and then find some excellent websites, blogs and articles that opened my mind even further to things like politics, the media, equality, sustainability, art, and much more – all things that my parents had discussed with me, but that I needed to discover on my own for my opinions to develop naturally; so I could truly discover how I really thought, by being free to explore all the information and opinions out there and to see what I felt was important and what I agreed and disagreed with. Hell, from simply their twelve year-old starting a blog, my parents' opinions have evolved thanks to endless conversations about all the stuff that I had read. So, while I can’t be sure if anyone reading this very self involved post is actually enjoying it (sorry I went on a bit), I still wanted to post this, as sort of a homage to my blog (and my sister), for making me significantly more well-adjusted. 

Summer Garden

 Photos of me taken by my mum mid-December last year in our garden. My silk dress is Victoria's Secret that I got for $4 from a charity shop and dyed (it was originally a light blue). Sorry it's a bit crinkly, but ironing is weird...

Also, Happy Sort-of-New Year!

Some belated thoughts on Christmas

I know that plenty of people want to just to get Christmas over with when it rears its over-decorated head every year. It's easy so stress yourself out as you untangle the decorations, cursing as you stand on spikey star-shaped Christmas lights (even worse than Lego); make the food; hunt for a gift for your brother's boyfriend's half-sister's father; cry in frustration as you try to master the art of curling ribbons; plan, plan, plan and plan for things you barely have time for; and try not to pull out your own hair as you are assaulted by horrendous festive songs in the supermarket when you are just trying to buy some organic carrots in peace (to quote my sister Jazz: "I'm not sure if it's singing or some kind of anti-ear campaign.")

...Okay, so as you can tell from my cynical over-exaggerations, I'm not a fan of Christmas. Alright, no, that's not true; I'm not a fan of the consumerism and expectations that come hand-in-hand with occasions such as Christmas (or the songs - seriously, they need to go).

There are so many aspects of Christmas that I enjoy: I do appreciate some of the decorations because I have an obsession with all things sparkly, I love that it brings people a bit closer - be it family or simply the stranger you smile at and say "Merry Christmas" as you walk past each other in a park, I love the word 'festive', I like food, I like chocolate, I love family and laughing and togetherness. It can be so full of wonder and love, sometimes it's the only time some people get to see their children, or the only time they get to relax and have a good time. I spent my Christmas in Brisbane, and I really enjoyed just walking around a park in West End and seeing people celebrating in their own ways. I love it when it means something; I like the things about Christmas that we preach so thoughtlessly and often that it's easy to forget what it should really be all about.

My favourite part is the memories from childhood. I feel a little bit closer to the magic and whimsy of being a kid and having that unbelievable excitement when waking up on Christmas morning or choosing the one present we were allowed to unwrap on Christmas Eve. The images are foggy but the feeling is still recalled easily, as is the smell of pine needles and tinsel. They evoke the same beautiful nostalgia I get when I reread my favourite children's books, climb trees or make forts. Later memories are still smiled over: the holiday we spent eating chocolate balls in the air-conditioning as we watched our favourite comedies, or the time my parents were concerned because I laughed for 10 whole minutes at a Christmas tree that my dad had made by sticking a Casuarina branch in a pot of pebbles and zip-tying a star-shaped cactus to the top - small memories that mean a great deal to an individual.

For me, this was the first Christmas in a long time that didn't induce anxiety as early as October.Why was this year different? The answer is simple: my family and I all agreed to not buy each other presents this time. The decision saved not only a lot of money, but saved us all huge amounts of stress. For many, it seems, the holiday can feel more obligatory than exciting.

Why do days like Xmas and Valentine's Day have to be so much about presents and stressing over making everything appear perfect?

I love giving gifts, but why should we have to have a set day to give them? A set day to appreciate our loved ones, to celebrate, and to remember to have a good time? I suppose it sometimes is needed as a reminder. I much prefer the idea of the spontaneity and special-ness of giving someone a gift just because you feel like it, or because you found something and thought of them. It can be hard to find the perfect present when you're stressfully searching for them along with one for everyone else. But of course, that's just how I feel about it and it's all different for everyone.

...Anyway, I think that's all that my point was, but I can't really remember for sure because once again I'm writing a rushed post while tired (as was the case in my previous post - SO sorry for the amount of times I said 'quite' and all the other awkward things).

I hope your year was wonderful and so was Christmas day, whether you celebrate it, something different, or nothing at all, and I hope that 2015 (and all those to come after) is fantastic for all of us.

Happy New Year *throws biodegradable confetti*.

Rediscovered Pictures

 

Images one, four, five and eight: my sister Ireland, taken by me. Images seven and nine: my sister Jazz, taken by me. Images two and six: me, taken by Jazz. Image three: me, taken by Ireland. Images ten, eleven and twelve: me, taken by my mum. Image thirteen: Ireland and I, taken by Jazz. I can't be sure, but some of these may be edited.

Note: The second-from-the-bottom photo was photoshopped ages ago because the picture showed a lot of spots on my face, I decided to not add it in the post in which the photoshoot that this photo came from was posted because putting up a photoshopped face didn't sit right with me. Looking at it again now, I've decided that I really like the photo (unfortunately I never saved the un-edited version) but just wanted to let you know that my skin doesn't actually look like that.

My laptop has finally been fixed (after my sister's laptop, which I was using before, died) and I now have access to all my photos, so I thought I'd post (just a tad more than) a few of my favourites, of which none besides photo number nine (of my sister Jazz) have appeared on the blog.

Photo taken by my friend Thelma

I was originally going to make this a very quick post, but I realised that I really want to share with you the story of Colin the barn swallow, who made an appearance in my last post. We found Colin to have rather fortunately landed in a box full of fabric, it seemed that her siblings (who we'd seen in the nest the day before) had been taken by something, and her parents never came back for her. We named her a masculine name but addressed her as a she to "balance it out" because we didn't know the gender (I know it sounds a bit wanky, but it made sense to us at the time - when we were both very tired). I was quite annoyed with her at first, but eventually grew affectionate towards her. She seemed comforted by sitting in my hand, so I'd take her out of her makeshift nest regularly so that she got some affection, and sometimes she'd sort of flap a bit and climb up my arm or the front of my shirt, until she got to the crook of my neck and buried herself in my hair, where she proceeded to make soft, content noises (what does it say about my hair if a baby bird things it's a good place to hang out in?). My mum and I started becoming really fond of her.

It was a rather interesting experience once she started flying, as I said in a post on instagram: it "involved her flying onto our ceiling fan and getting upset because she didn't know how to get down - so I had to coax her onto an umbrella (a vintage one, natch); her flying into my face; her flying onto my shoulder and refusing to get off; flying onto my head three times; flapping and climbing up my arm to nestle into the crook of my neck; flying up and perching on the curtain railing; flying onto my EAR and perching there; and quite a lot of awkward flaps in the air in which it seemed that she wasn't sure what to do next." We then took her outside regularly for a fly, which was terrifying, but wonderful as she seemed to really love it. She was a natural (probably because she's a bird, but whatever...).

We had her for 32 days before she left 'the nest' on Tuesday, and it was really just so great seeing her grow from strength to strength in such a short period of time: seeing her fly for the first time, watching her catch a bug midair right in front of me, seeing that she'd found a dam to drink from and bath in (because she came back looking like a drowned rat), and all sorts of wonderful things. It was really quite sweet to have a bird that would fly onto your shoulder (or your hand if you held it out to her). She'd even be quite happy to sit on my thumb as I was texting on my phone. Colin also rather enjoyed waking me up by gently pulling on my eyelashes at five-thirty in the morning, which, despite my annoyance at being woken up so early, actually felt quite nice. She was also quite funny, too: once, she was watching a wasp fly around so intently that she fell off my finger, she also had a tendency to get distracted by watching the ceiling fan - it was quite funny watching her head twirl around as the fan did.
I also realised that her name was quite funny, as well: I gave her nicknames like Colinoscopy and Semi-Colin, and when she took a bath it was a 'Colin cleanse'. I also liked to have her sit on my middle finger so I could give people 'the bird'. Anyway, that's all I can think of right now as I'm very tired (and am writing this because I'm trying to update my blog at least once a month). I do miss having her around, but I would never have put her in a cage and tried to keep her. I'm just hoping that she's safe and has found a nice coliny (see what I did there?) of barn swallows to join. Long live Colin!