Yes, home again after our quick trip to Queensland. It was a weekend full of extremes: much sadness, but also much celebrating of life and each other.
My parents dropped the girls back to us on Sunday night and we spent a bit of time playing records and drinking wine and hanging out. Squeezing the girls until they popped. Sunday was very slow indeed, with a lot of reading and watching the Patti Smith documentary Dream of Life.
I have finished M Train now, and was absolutely not ready to say goodbye to Our Pats just yet, so went on the hunt for the documentary. I need her brown toast, and stream of consciousness thinking, and seeing art where there shouldn’t be any. I very much enjoy being in her head.
But yes, home. Home is so bloody good. My own kitchen with my own insane cats and tripping over children every time I turn around. Sure the floor needs sleeping and the chickens have torn up the ground around my tomato plants again, but I will find the time to deal with those.
I headed out to see Roger Waters last night at Rod Laver Arena. I had thought briefly about going late last year when I heard he was touring but was pretty undecided, having been told the tickets were expensive.
Last Wednesday night, I read an article about the Brisbane show, where Roger had mentioned it would probably be his last tour of Australia, given he’s now 74 years old. I immediately turned around and bought a (very reasonably-priced, I must have been previously ill-informed) ticket. You don’t love Pink Floyd like I do and pass up what may be your only chance to see their songs performed by the people that created them. Or person, in this case. I am sure I’ll be first in line for any of David’s tours, should he decide to do any more, and enjoy them just as much. I LOVE YOU, DAVE.
But Rog put on a show, as he is wont to do. He and the band played quite a few songs from Dark Side of the Moon, Animals, and The Wall, and popped a Wish You Were Here in there for good measure in amongst his new stuff. I may or may not have involuntarily cried for a good 20 minutes while my brain tried to process what I was really hearing and seeing. When they played Time, my absolute favourite Pink Floyd song ever, I was completely blown away.
I just had visions of 15-year-old me playing all my dad’s old Floyd tapes until I just about wore them out, so far removed from ever seeing a band like that live. Being 16 and in love with my Dark Side vinyl, beseeching anyone holding an axe to be careful with it and addressing them as “Eugene”, falling asleep listening to Shine on You Crazy Diamond only to be rudely awoken by its rousing chorus, obsessively writing the lyrics to Echoes and never understanding quite what they said after “everything is green” (turns out it’s “and submarine”, who’d have thought?!), drunken singalongs of Wish You Were Here, having most of The Wall go over my young head, only to re-fall in love with the album decades later. A whole soundtrack of my life, there in real time with real people making it come alive.
It was also a very politically-charged show (Rog would ensure nothing less) so there was a whole thread of resisting the government fat cats and upholding global human rights. Roger has politely requested we resist. Pop that in your calendars, if you can. Jot it on your to-do lists. Resist something shit.
I had Smalls home that Wednesday, as their school has testing for preps on those days. We went for an explore out Werribee way to photograph some new playgrounds for work, and I braked very hard for this abandoned cottage on the drive down. Look at it. Who lived there? What did they grow on their farm? Were they happy there? Was it hot and hard? Who built it? Did they plant those trees? Who decided to build a house right here?
It was a stinking hot day, so we paddled at the shoreline and went hunting for seashells. It’s nice to have her with me just a little bit longer before I have to relinquish her every day. Every day is a lot for this old ma! Do they have to go a whole five damn days?
I’m sneaking in a bit of Steinbeck before I get a head start on the second book club pick, which I’ll announce later tonight. I’d like to poke back through M Train a little more, though, and I’ve started a new book Monarchy: Behind the Scenes with the Royal Family, by Brian Hoey. I love the peek behind the royal curtain books. What does the Queen eat for breakfast? (cereal and eggs, mostly) what do they watch on TV? What happens on the weekends? What goes on at Balmoral? All of the daily domesticity stories are belong to me.
So does lunch. Off to toast a sandwich and put the kettle on. See you back here tonight for book club announcement #2!
Aaah I so remember those days, lying on the floor of our lounge smoking cigarettes (after sneaking out of school at lunch time) and just letting the music of Pink Floyd wash over you like nothing we had ever heard before. I wonder if our girls will do the same? Hopefully not smoke!! It’s amazing how much music means to you when you hit your teens, so much angst and the feeling that the songs are speaking your truth. Still get those chills to this day some times.
Oh yeah, I’ve had to ban myself from listenting to them as I go to sleep cos I get too overexcited about a certain riff or weird noise, haha.
I hope my kids are crazy, enjoy psychedelic music, wag school occasionally, have angsty moments, and NEVER SMOKE! Famous last words.
To be honest, Pepper’s face is too much and I can perfectly understand why you want to be looking at it all day, every day. Lo has Wednesdays off, too. Her face is also great to have around.
I resisted brushing my teeth this morning (actually just forgot) and then it felt so gross. I think I have misunderstood the memo. Will try again. But as of now, I am still embracing fluoride. I feel like Rog is okay with that as long as I keep the pressure on my deep and abiding disdain for Barnaby Joyce. Do you think?
I was more of a Led Zepp girl. I feel like the nipple-shaving scene in that Pink Floyd movie damaged me…
Also, how much is that hanging fern loving life in your kitchen?? Heart eyes.
Also, brown toast sounds like a particular strain of acid best avoided at Woodstock. Just me?
I’ve resisted vacuuming the floor, but I feel like I’m aiming too low, ya know?
brown toast reminds me of the recipes in all my old cookbooks. Everything was served piping hot with rounds of brown bread and butter or brown toast and I AM HERE FOR IT. I bet it was shipped from the kitchen by a nan in an apron.
Not sure how I haven’t managed to kill that fern. It’s an absolute mystery.
I had my Led Zep moments myself… but I don’t still get LZ vinyl for Christmas, so I think it’s fair to say Floyd is my lifelong #1
I love seeing peeks into your life, thank you for sharing, also that bread looks amazing
I love that you are always here, reading. I feel like sometimes I’m speaking to an internet that’s off reading something else, but know you will always be on the other side of my screen, and I’m grateful for it <3
I too brake hard for abandoned cottages.
I feel like we have a lot in common. I also grew up in an outback town with nothing to do. Although I still haven’t been to a see a band I actually like. Sigh. One day.
I’ve got to ask, do you have to make yourself sit down and read or does it come naturally to you? The older/busier I get. the harder it is for me to find the time and inclination to sit down and read something that isn’t a computer/smart phone.
Ah a kindred spirit! Hello!
yeah reading does come naturally, it’s always something I’ve really loved and felt a need for.
Of course now I’m a working mum I could definitely let it slip, and there are times when I have. But I feel sick at the thought that the internet and social media has broken my concentration span, so absolutely make time to read rather than spend it passively doing something else. I don’t watch heaps of TV, and really do like to disconnect with tangible stuff like cooking or knitting. When the kids were babies I used to have a bath every night, and that’s where I’d get most of my reading done. Nowadays I always think about what my kids are seeing me do on the weekends and things. Am I absentmindedly scrolling a screen for hours on end? Or am I reading one of the hundreds of books in the house, like I would love them to do? So I pick up a book. Waiting room? I take a book. Public transport? Book. Early to school pickup? If its too hot or cold to go hang with my school parent friends, I’ll read a book in the car. I have one always in my handbag, and always by my bed. And all over the couch arms, coffee tables… I leave a trail of “i’m in the middle of that” books wherever I go, haha. You are what you consume and while I love the internet, I don’t want to be it. I want to be art.
Whoa, that was heavy!