My favourite image of today

Today, I noticed that one of the trees on our street is so thickly laden with blossoms that the pretty pink petals crowd out the new fresh-green spring leaves.

It is an almost excessive bounteousness of beauty.

I feel a similar bounteousness exists in my life at present: a richness of experience, a time of promise, a profusion of things to be grateful for.

Finding Beauty in Melbourne

It's been 19 weeks and 2 days since I moved to Melbourne, and while I still miss Adelaide very much, I continue to focus on finding beauty and good things in my new home.

Here are my Top Four Joyful Discoveries of the last few weeks:

4. Wilson Botanic Gardens
OK, I know I've mentioned this beautiful open space numerous times in previous postings, but these gardens really are worth a trip out to Berwick. Some of the trees are a little confused at present with the apparent change of season - who isn't? - but the variety of plantings, walks and sculptures make this a "must see" in the south eastern suburbs. Enjoy a cup of tea down Berwick's main street afterwards, with its convenient centre parking - a space always seems to open up, just when you need one!

3. South Melbourne Markets
Wow! Great food, yummy cakes, and the shop where I found the purple dress I've been sporting with joy the last couple of weeks. Might almost qualify as "a smaller version of Adelaide Central Markets". (Almost.)

2. Driving East along the Monash at Sunset
My husband and I did this on Saturday afternoon. I was driving and first noted the quality of the light reflected off the bridges, sound barriers and roadside vegetation; then Peter looked back and saw the stratified sunset behind us. I think the urban planners did a great job planting along the Monash, and seeing the various gardens bathed in rose-gold light was a real treat.

1. The Beach at Beaumaris
Admittedly, I saw this during lunchtime last Friday when the sun was shining strong and the temperature was warm - so I've probably seen it in its best possible light, for this time of year. However, new to this city as I am, I never realized there were beaches like this within Melbourne. I'd been to South Melbourne and St Kilda, where footpaths are separated from sand by cement pathways, but here there are strips of trees ... and sandstone cliffs to the south! I went home in rapture.

This picture is looking south; I only had the camera on my mobile phone with me, which was unable to do justice to the cliffs from afar.

Being in a new city isn't just about making new friends, it's about finding or creating a sense of 'home' in the midst of a new geography. For me, finding places or things I can connect with emotionally is a big part of this process. The search continues!

Seeing the blue sky and feeling the sun's warmth

Don't get enough of these, this time of year in Melbourne.

Popped interstate for "a quick dose of Adelaide" to revive my spirits over the weekend. It was just wonderful to get up on Saturday morning, drive up the top of the Torrens and run - IN SUNSHINE! (Sorry for shouting; I've just missed it so much.)

However, "mustn't grumble" (as they say on local radio in Adelaide): I've arrived back in Melbourne today, and the sky is blue, and the sun is trying its hardest ... and I'm grateful for these things. I'm grateful I can be aware of these things, have the freedom to go outside and experience them, am not imprisoned by ill health or infirmity or any other impediment.

I am fortunate, and I am grateful, and I am going to focus on these everyday beauties; because my life is what I make it - and I want it to be full of beauty. I hope, when my time comes, to have the opportunity to look back over my life; and if I have lived the way I want to, then my life will be characterized by beauty and strength. Not sure what I mean? Listen to the first movement of Tchaikovsky's violin concerto in D (Op. 35). That main theme - that's what I want my life to be like. (Ambitious, much? J)

Starstruck: Catie meets her idol

The past four weeks have been extraordinary, even for someone accustomed as I am to living at the more “vivid” or “textured” extremes of human experience.

I like the word “texture” because it acknowledges the rough and the smooth, without commentary; the whole of one’s experience is recognized, accepted, without moral judgement or distinction.

In this post, I want to tell you about just one piece of that texture, which also happens to be one of the most wonderful things I’ve experienced in a long time.

Pekka Kuusisto is the world’s greatest living violinist. He has had a great effect on my life, in manners I won’t describe here beyond noting the way that experiencing something of great beauty changes the way you see the world. A good portion of my “Most Played” are his recordings – Bach, Vivaldi and of course fellow Finn, Sibelius. In my mental thesaurus – and probably to my friends’ bemused exasperation – he’s affectionately known as “the divine Pekka” (with accompanying self-mocking hand-pats to the heart).

I discovered that on Sunday 8^th May he was playing a gig at Bennett’s Lane, a jazz club in Melbourne’s CBD. Having attended an acquaintance’s book launch that afternoon, I’d hung around in the city for a few hours, experiencing a chill, drizzly Melbourne evening.

I must admit that, damp and cold, my faith wavered a little. After all, I had a long drive home after the performance, and a week’s work ahead of me –I’m not at my best when sleep-deprived; was this chance to see my favourite performer worth some days’ discomfort? Yes, I determined, being among the first through the door and securing a front-row table.

I am not a music critic, so I won’t attempt to describe the concert in technical terms. I will acknowledge that until Finnish jazz pianist Iiro Rantala introduced the concert, I had been unaware that there existed a tradition of tango composition in Finland! Pekka restored my stereotypes of Finnish music by pointing out (?jokingly) that most Finnish tango composers drank themselves to death, even as young as thirty seven ...

I can, however, say a few words about how I experienced their performance.

Pekka and Iiro were electric on the stage. Both of them played with their whole bodies – I swear, even their eyebrows and earlobes contributed to that alchemy of an expert duo playing incredible music! As I said to my companion during interval, I’m not quite sure whether the best analogy is sexual – their focus on each other was so intense – or canine, because (and I mean this in no derogatory sense whatsoever) even when their eyes were focussed elsewhere, their attention was on each other – just as one can observe between dogs.

Pekka is a true master of the violin. Whether he’s playing a Bach partita (yes, during a jazz concert!) or holding it banjo-like and plucking an accompaniment to his whistled tune; whether beating an amazing array of sounds out of his precious instrument or bowing so vehemently that hairs are flying apart with each stroke, he is in total control of each sound produced (with the endearing exception of accidently striking the goose-neck microphone stand at the conclusion of one piece).

After the performance I had the chance to speak with Pekka (twice!), Iiro and tour manager Henk. I will admit to becoming a little starstruck when Pekka gave me a small embrace upon hearing that I took up the violin after hearing him live for the first time. I did restrain myself from asking if I could have my photo taken with him: how gauche! (But, in hindsight, would I have been happier now? No, my memories are ample mementos).

I have been to many concerts in my life, but this has joined that very short list of nights I will never forget. The memory of it lies in my heart like a jewel: glittering, enduring; a talisman against mediocrity; a reminder that life can contain Robert Henri’s “more than ordinary moments of existence”.

I type these words after a few rough days in which my psyche has been battered and bruised. Upon reflection, I’m glad that busy-ness kept me from writing about this concert until now: today, in particular, I needed to touch base with beauty, be reminded of the hours of perspiration which allow inspiration to flourish, to rebuild my defences against the drabness of an accumulation of oh-so-ordinary moments.

People who give us these moments of beauty ... we owe them so much. I’m not talking now about virtuosos, but about the down-to-earth kindnesses we can show each other. Typing this I’m reminded of others who have shown me grace and beauty this week: the student who chose not to get angry when he was kept waiting for help because I was disciplining others; the attendant at the petrol station who meant it when she wished me a “good day”. Please don’t let me sound preachy or idealistic! The world isn’t always that kind. But it can be. And that’s a good thing.  

Unexpected Beauty

My aesthetics were formed by a country childhood and an Adelaide adolescence, as were my stereotypes; I’m afraid my cultural baggage includes low hopes of finding unexpected corners of natural beauty in this larger metropolis of Melbourne.

Exploring these new surrounds, I’m fortunate to be continually proved wrong – on a daily basis. Sometiems I love being wrong!

Whether it’s admiring the simple vigorous wonder of a thriving lawn, or the flowers which seem to thrive atop brick letterboxes down my street – a verdant miracle unseen in Adelaide – I’m teaching my eyes to expect to see nature pushing up through the concrete jungle.

Sometimes it’s making its own way, as the blackberries surviving the council's best eradication efforts alongside the overpass by our home. Other times someone has planned a really successful planting in a public space, which “just works”.

A few of these gems lie alongside the Monash Freeway (the M1, this eastern side of Melbourne). As the exits reach towards the twenties, natives have successfully been planted in the serrations of sound barriers. I particularly like the trees just before and after the South Gippsland Highway – the specimens on the left as you’re heading east approach the spectacular. Other beauties lie near the Belgrave-Hallam Road exit, or the Narre Warren exit, particularly if you’re driving towards the city.

Perhaps my favourite is the mix of (? I'm no botanist) aloes and shrubs on the slope leading up to Ernest Wanke Road*. The mix of species seems to have developed well together and looks great early in the morning, under full daylight or as the day fades to gold.

This finding-of-beauty reminds me to see beauty in the other mundanities of life – those gracious interactions with a friendly shop assistant, the generosity of a fellow train commuter. Beauty, perhaps, lies within the open-minded beholder’s eyes ... kept open.

* For people who aren’t local – I didn’t make that name up!