It’s Saturday lunchtime and I’m at work for two reasons. First, I had to make a few arrangements, face to face, with one of the presenters. Second, it’s SOOOOOO BLOOOOOOODY HUUUUUMID. I’m not sure what the actual humidity reading is, but speaking with some people here at work, they’ve told me the weather today is very strange… a bit like the “build-up”.
Should I explain the “build-up”? Although aboriginal people in the area have identified up to eight seasons in the Top End (and the Top End refers only to one part of the Northern Territory, not the whole of the NT), white folk here usually just refer to the “wet season”, the “dry season” and the “build up”. While the Dry season is near perfect, with temperatures above 30 every day and not a rain cloud in site, the Wet Season is probably more of an acquired taste. During the Wet season temperatures get a bit higher but, more importantly, the humidity rises sharply. Most locals say the “build up” is the worst. From October to the end of December the heat builds up along with the humidity. Storm clouds form, but very rarely is there any rain. If I can be a little sexual for a moment… it’s like your mother walking into your room when you’re on the verge of an orgasm.
Went out for a drink last night with Penny and a guy called Keith. Keith also lives in my apartment block on Level 8, which, he tells me, is the same level as the brothel! So yes, I was right about prostitution.
Also went to the other local bar, “Throb”, which was a little more exciting than the “Mississippi Queen”. Lots more people and friendlier too. I’ll write a more complete review when I have time.
I’m off for some lunch and then to do the War Tunnels tour that Damien and I didn’t get to do last time we were here.
You know how at the end of “The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy”, the meaning of life is famously revealed as “forty-two”? Reading the book as a child, I thought it was just a nonsense way of saying there is no universal meaning of life.
Many years later, and having interviewed Douglas Adams, I now think he was probably saying forty-two was about the age at which you discover your own meaning of life. Deep eh?
Forty-two is also about the number of beers I drank last night for my birthday drinks at “The Evening Star”.
Although I’ve been anticipating it for a while, and unlike most years, had actually given some thought to a drinks celebration, turning forty-two kinda surprised me when it arrived. I’ve been really busy at work lately, and so have been reasonably distracted until, all of a sudden, it happened.
Birthday Beers at The Evening Star
I’ve always been fairly conscious of the multiples of seven birthdays though. Long before new-age thinking, I remember, as a child, my dad telling me life life goes through seven year cycles. I still remember the conversation vividly, as it just seemed to come out of nowhere, though it was obviously something my dad believed.
The forty-second year brings a major change because it is the polarity of the twenty-eighth year. Here, the integration of the whole self occurs. The view is not, “World, what can you give me?” as in the twenty-eighth year, but, “World what have I got to give you?” It is the realization of all the growth that has occurred and the ability to use it in its most productive way.
At forty-two, you may begin to have doubts about your life. These doubts are not negative. They are based on the growth gained in the interim years between thirty-five and forty-two. This creates an ability to question whether you wish to maintain your life as it is or whether new changes are imminent. Doubt can be positive if it is leading you to be suspect of something in your life that is not good for you.
If past experience is anything to go by, I suspect changes in my life may also be imminent. Aged twenty-two, I quit my job at Coles and left Brisbane for Bourke in Western NSW (a big change) to follow my career dream. Aged twenty-nine, I fulfilled another long-term career goal, and also moved to Sydney. Aged thirty-six, I became single again, ending a reasonably long-relationship, and soon-after started on a new direction in my career. So strictly speaking, the changes in my life occur about twelve months after one of those multiple of seven birthdays.
And now, aged forty-two, like the hippies say, I find myself questioning my life again and wondering what’s next. I’m planning overseas travel next year, of maybe two or three months duration, so maybe that will be an opening to the next part of my life.
But in the meantime, it was great last night to get together and have a few drinks with mates. As previously noted, I have a broad cross-section of friends, and it was very nice to see them getting to meet each other last night. I loved hearing from workmates comments like “Your friends are VERY nice”, and hearing from friends comments like, “The people you work with are VERY interesting”. Maybe that’s what the meaning of life is – being surrounded by interesting, lovely people.
It’s lunchtime on Saturday and I’ve just had a lovely morning in and around home. I woke up at about 10 this morning, having slept like a log, due to a long day yesterday and farewell drinks for a colleague last night.
I wandered down to the post office to pick up my package – what could it be? – though unfortunately Australia Post Surry Hills is closed on Saturday. I had a bite to eat at Cossies and spent an hour or so sitting in the sun in the park near home. What a nice start to the weekend.
Aside from a couple of nights socialising, and lots of work, there’s not much of interest to report, so I’ll end it there.
The next week is really interesting, however. I’m going to John and James’ place tonight for a party to celebrate forty years of Cook Islands independence, I’m heading off to Melbourne for a day or so, I’m having dinner with Kate for her birthday, I’m going to the Blogger Meeting and I’m off to see a Me & My Sister tomorrow which sounds interesting.
See you next week when I actually have something interesting to say.
There was a truly hilarious moment today when I realised just how much of a fish out of water I am: my wheelchair got stuck in the snow. I’ve flown up to Luleå in the north of Sweden, and throughout this trip, I’ve been using wheelchair support to navigate the airports. Usually, the terminals are massive and confusing, and with the added complexity of security checks for my prosthetic limb and hip, the assistance just makes the journey so much smoother.
Luleå is the most remote stop on this trip—a municipality of about 80,000 people on the far north coast, only about 90 minutes from the Finnish border. It’s a part of the world where the lakes and rivers literally freeze over for months, and daylight is a rare commodity. The hour-long flight from Stockholm was spectacular; as we descended over the coast, I realised the vast expanse of white below wasn’t land, but the frozen ocean. The line between earth and sea is completely blurred this far north. It was absolutely stunning.
Upon landing, a young man met me to assist with the trek to the terminal. We walked down a few stairs onto the tarmac, which was blanketed in snow. He started pushing me, but the chair struggled immediately in the deep powder. I offered to walk—I can manage that distance—but he was persistent, and we eventually crunched our way inside.
I was greeted by my friend and colleague, Carrie. She’s a fascinating mix—half Swedish, half Australian. She lived in Australia for 15 years, which seems impossible to me; the time has flown. She eventually fell in love, and her partner moved back to Sweden with her.
We spent the day sightseeing, starting with a visit to the local recycling centre. The Swedes do recycling on a scale that puts us to shame; it’s not just bins for cans and bottles, but massive hubs for clothes and everything else imaginable. Afterwards, we drove around the area. Everything is a blinding, flat white. We visited the harbour, which was being prepped for a big festival where people ice-skate over immense distances.
Walking on the ice and snow is a challenge with my disability, but I discovered the kick-sled. For me, it functioned like a Nordic walking frame. You’re supposed to put one foot on a blade and kick with the other, which I obviously can’t do, but using it for stability made me feel incredibly mobile and confident.
We also dropped by Carrie’s workplace—a local radio station. It was a “busman’s holiday” moment, seeing a station operating in a format so similar to my crew at the ABC. Despite the distance, the role in the community and the staff energy felt exactly like home. They’re currently in the thick of Winter Olympics coverage. We paused for a coffee and a kanelbulle (cinnamon bun) before heading to Gammelstad.
Gammelstad is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and we stepped into a 15th-century Lutheran church just as one baptism was ending and another was beginning. I saw a woman running through the snow carrying a baby who looked absolutely frozen! The highlight, however, was the “church town”—hundreds of tiny red cottages nestled in the snow. It was overwhelmingly beautiful. We drove back over the frozen river and through forests where the trees were bowing under the weight of the snow. I felt like a child; I was beside myself with excitement at an environment so alien to the Australian Outback.
Later, I ventured out independently while Carrie rested. Luleå’s shopping district is fairly standard for a country town, but I enjoyed a quiet coffee before navigating the bus system back to Carrie’s. I’m not entirely sure I paid—the driver said something in Swedish, I tapped my card (I think?), and he let me on. When I hopped off 15 minutes later, I was momentarily lost—every house looks identical when covered in white! Thankfully, I heard a voice call out, “James, I’m here!” and Carrie guided me home.
The evening ended with a dinner party with several of Carrie’s colleagues from Swedish radio and TV. They were a lovely, eclectic group. The highlight of the night was the Melodifestivalen (Mello) fever. Even in the middle of a sophisticated dinner conversation, the intensity of interest in the Eurovision heats was incredible. Everything stopped so we could watch the final entries and the voting. They seemed genuinely shocked that an Australian knew as much about the contest details as they did.
The Swedes really do love their Mello. A perfect end to a day in the deep north.
In the midst of the ongoing COVID-lockdown, I’m managing to keep myself reasonably fit by walking. Though there are some days I don’t quite reach the magic number of 10,000 steps, quite often I do.
I try to stop along the way and take some photographs, and this weekend, in particular, I’ve shot some video.
There’s yesterday’s video, a walk to the Lismore Showground, Farmer’s Market and Saleyard. And today, there’s a video along the riverbank in Lismore.
As I’ve stated previously, Lismore has a “difficult” relationship with the river, due to regular flooding in the city. But it’s still quite lovely, and today there were quite a few people out and about, walking along the riverbank, and there were even some people in boats.
Today I met Jamie, a kayaker who sums it up well. He said there are other “prettier places” to go kayaking, like nearby Brunswick Heads or Evans Head, but that Lismore’s river is still pretty special. “I love it, it puts a whole new perspective on my town”, he told me.
The “day” started a little later for me, as I enjoyed a reasonably good “sleep in” this morning, after last night going out for a drink at Torget.
After a moment or two of sitting by myself, I was befriended by a young bloke who told me he was originally from the far north of Sweden, near the border with Finland. He told me he was planning to return there after he and his partner get married in about six months time. “How long have you known each other?”, I asked. He blushed when he told me it was less than twelve months. I assured him I knew heaps of people who’ve begun long term relationships which involved living together soon after meeting (myself included).
He was a friendly type, and so introduced us to two other blokes seated nearby. For the next couple of hours we engaged in a terrific conversation about identity, language, politics and so on. It was really, really enjoyable, and really nice to connect with some locals. The conversation was so good that it was past midnight when I made it home to sleep.
So this morning I had a little sleep-in, and watched a bit of morning television before heading out for my daily routine of a morning coffee, and a bit of sight-seeing. As much as I thought I knew Södermalm very well, I found myself discovering parts of the island I’ve never seen before, which was very exciting.
It was then I began to imagine my life in retirement. Admittedly, it’s still twenty years to go (or thereabouts), but I found myself sitting on park benches, enjoying the view, watching the world go by, and exchanging pleasantries with older women. STOP! I’m not ready for that yet, and so went out in search of some interesting, challenging art to view.
I discovered a really terrific exhibition of photographs and videos by Tova Mozard. Although much of her work is centred on the United States, she was born and lives in Sweden.
There’s quite a bit of video work in the exhibition. There’s a lengthy black and white piece, for example, in which a middle-aged man is telling his life-story while digging a grave. He tells the story of an early life with an alcoholic father, spending time in an orphanage, taking lots and lots of drugs, and fathering and then leaving children. When he uttered the words, “When I went to prison”, I decided I couldn’t take any more. It was all a bit too grim, and so I wandered on.
Later I found a video piece which I quite liked, which featured an older woman who was possibly a cabaret singer in her early life. As she told the story of her life, she would sometimes burst into song, half-remembering the lyrics of the songs she had sung during her cabaret career.
There’s definitely a “blackness” to much of Tova Mozard’s work, as many of the photographs dealt specifically with death. There was everything from a rather touching photograph of an older man and a younger woman (father and daughter, I thought) with grief-stricken faces, to a photograph of the “Bates Hotel” sign, underscored with “No Vacancy”. Another favourite was a young man and a woman standing in front of the grave of Jean-Paul Satre and Simone de Beauvoir.
I liked the exhibition very much, and it was a lovely way to spend a couple of hours.
And then later this afternoon/earlier this evening I went to the Östasiatiska museet (East Asian Art Museum) on Skeppsholmen, which has an IMPRESSIVE collection of art from Japan, Korea, China etc. I’m not really one for the antiquities; I’m much more interested in contemporary art. And there’s a terrific exhibition there called “Secret Love” which is about homosexuality in China.
One of the most impressive works for me is a four panel work called “Hello Comrades” which one the surface, purports to show just lots of faces involved involved in similar pursuits including construction, the military, and playing ping-pong. When you look more closely, however, there are obviously homosexual images. The same “hidden” depiction is also found in a series of paper cuts in a dark room which only become apparent when light is shined on them. Most memorably, there’s a video work which depicts a demonstration of and public reaction to same sex couples seeking to be married.
I actually went on a tour of the exhibition delivered entirely in Swedish. I estimate I understood about 40% of what was said. Even if I missed some of the jokes along the way, I understood most of what was being said to convey issues and ideas covered in the works. There was one point when the tour guide asked all of the group what we thought of a particular work. He looked directly at me first for a response. Although I could have resorted to the Swedish word for all occasions, “bra” (good), I looked to the woman standing next to me, and thank goodness she responded.
On arriving home tonight I was greeted by the first fall of snow on this trip. It’s pretty light. Just a few flurries. I’m hoping that when I wake in the morning there’ll be white streets to great me.
Tova Mozard photograph at the grave of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir
Late afternoon sun on Surbrunnsgatan in Stockholm
Secret Love exhibition at Stockholm’s Östasiatiska museet
