Do you even go here?

‘Very well then I contradict myself’, and the unexpected seasonal confession

It’s wintertime. Nights are hitting minus temperatures, the deciduous trees in the garden are now spindly apparitions of their plush summer selves, and I am rapturously glad about all of it.

The day after the first snowfall of the season, the tiny bud of a yellow rose busted into view from a barrel pot on the deck. The contrast of its optimistic, buttery hue against the backdrop of bald branches and damp old wood beams sent our family into a flurry of celebration. So impressed by the boldness of this lone flower giving it a go against seasonal odds and in rather woeful conditions for flourishing. The next morning, as I came downstairs to make breakfast, I noticed it was positioned under the tacky lime-green beach umbrella that had been shafted to the garage since March, now dug into the soil of this pot to stand proud in preservation of beauty. Someone had given it some assistance. It’s very own shelter from the nightly frost. Turns out that someone was my Dad. “That brave little thing deserves every chance it can get”, He told me when I questioned the new setup. The daily removal and replacement of the umbrella has since become somewhat of a choreographed routine — I move it in the morning, exposing the petals to sunlight during the day, and by nightfall Dad has popped it back up. Tucked the petals in for the night.

One week on, the rose has bloomed. And I can’t help but reach for the meaning in all of it. Because, much like this accidentally-winter-present rose, I too have found myself coming to life a little more than expected this month. It has me thinking about timing. About the words of Carolee Schneeman - “contradictions should be appreciated for letting change emerge.” And about just doing what you can with where you are.

Last year I went on what I liked to call my Tour de Friends. A global galavant that saw me spend quality time with just about every close friend I have across 3 different continents. I now also like to refer to it as my ‘Year of 3 Summers.’ A frivolous, bright, minimally-clothed chunk of time lived predominantly beneath blaring sunshine and in big bodies of water. Nearing the end of the adventure, living with my sister and her partner by the beach in Australia, I decided a skin check might be in order — considering the hammering such a vast number of days in fine weather might have given my body’s Scottish-English-Scandi-centric make up. “Ooo, I don’t like the look of that”, the clinic specialist said in a sombre tone that sounded semi-comical in my ears thanks to his thick Aussie accent. He’d traced his magnifying tool over the tiniest pin prick of a mole on my shoulder and that was it. Day was ruined. I was to come back tomorrow to have it removed for biopsy and then wait a further 5-6 for results. I probed him in a friendly manner to reassure myself as I left the room — penny for his thoughts…What did he wager? What are we dealing with, Doc? He remained professional and through a sympathetic smile said, “it’s hard to tell at this stage.” Of course. And that was just the euphemistic blow my overactive mind was looking to mess with.

I spent that entire week utterly convinced the mole (benign blue nevus, turns out!) was going to be my end. But, rather than sink into despair, what came of those 7 days was a most profound awareness. A shiny bright spotlight was suddenly cast on every little thing I did or witnessed myself being a part of. These hands. Look at these hands and how they do what they do! Suddenly my face in the mirror was a marvel — not a critique. Every expression, blemish, every line, every seemingly imperfect part of myself I could now see with the most overwhelming compassion. Because one day it will cease to be, and what a shame to have squandered it. Walking the beach one evening I saw a woman throw a stick for her dog, and as it ran so goofily into the water my eyes fill with tears at the thought of ever missing the slightest act of aliveness. It felt criminal to look away for even a second, to take my eye off the ball, to never not notice ever again.

Dramatic much… But truly.

Much like the out-of-context rose, it took the threat of something brutal to appreciate how miraculous even the tiniest, littlest, dumbest of daily happenings was. Sometimes a fun context shake-up is the remedy for complacency, but sometimes the renewal comes from staying inside the one that we don’t particularly feel suited to or enjoy the feel of. We find a way to bloom anyway.

I’m reminded of another rose in the garden here. It’s under the apricot tree and usually just does its own thing, until every summer we head down to pick the fruit and someone (usually Mum) will exclaim “Gran’s rose is out.” It’s just one lone rose typically. The one that my sister grew from a cutting, from a different bush, in a different town, after being carefully transported from our Grandparent’s house when Gran died 20 years ago.

Or it’s like in my job as an event producer, where I remind myself of Joey Tribiani on a daily basis. That episode where he goes on a date with the woman who legitimately thinks he is Dr Drake Ramoray and then someone chokes at the restaurant and he can’t save them cause he’s just Joey.

To feel yourself fumble through calls with ‘principals’ and ‘executives’ and vendors and speakers just spouting vague technical terms in no coherent order to sound like a sentence, only to close with “ok, awesome!”, is a very corporate-specific flavour of adrenaline. But soon comes the follow up feeling: let’s do that again.

I’ve said it many times before, but to push through humiliation and discomfort, to stick out like a sore thumb, to not know wtf is going on or how to say the thing or initiate the move or follow the recipe is the coolest part of being a human. Just trying it on for size.

Last July in Athens I became friends with a girl named Cecily. We met by chance through a mutual friend whose spare room she was renting while in Greece completing a thesis on mother deities. We spent a string of evenings in each other’s company sharing food, stories, and philosophies in tavernas, at cramped tables outside souvlaki windows, from our seats at summer cinema screenings, and atop ancient sites.

One late night, sitting on the stone bema at Hill of Pynx, overlooking the twinkling lights of the city and eating sugar-free halva we’d bought from a healthy cafe en route, she said something that gave such grace to the conundrum we were both facing — that of transitioning from one context to another, fast, after firmly connecting with the current one we found ourselves in. She said, “it takes the soul a while to catch up sometimes. After an experience like this you can arrive and be somewhere physically, but your soul isn’t there with you quite yet. It stays in that other place.” Our souls linger…

She was also the one who said, as we sat comically trying to cool ourselves with one shitty accordion hand fan between us, that being in the extreme heat offered up a way of appreciating our bodies differently. ‘The body is simply bodying’ was our rationale. We’d gone from seeing them as object — something neat and cooperative to look at and adorn — to being this “thing” that is kind of gross but so amazing and functional. Everyday confronted by its necessary and practical tasks like sweating, requiring hydration, swelling, beating, expelling, regulating.

Winter is a chance for our body to have a break from bodying, in a way. Our focus is as keenly internal, but it’s more gentle, permissive, nurturing.

In the contrast of the dark and cold, we feel ourselves as warm, fragile things in need of shelter. We give our summer souls the moment they need to finally catch up.

We preserve our beauty, as we surrender to the harsh and hostile brilliance of the very season at hand.