Back in Sydney, Travel + Life Abroad
Hello, Goodbye
With news of returning lust for overseas life, the knowledge that the remaining few months here will contain SG and all of our travel plans, Christmas, NYE, a dear friend’s wedding, the possible sale of our house and my birthday, and the farewell to my sister who leaves tonight to haul a backpack around parts of Africa and the Middle East, my attention has turned more than ever to what surrounds me. I am trying harder than ever to look not backwards, not forwards, but around. At Sydney in all her temperamental-Spring glory. At friends and family, my hugely fun students, at the beach whose waves are the soundtrack to my hugely fun students doing their worksheets on the Present Continuous.
The weekend was about home and family, welcoming my parents back from NYC and waving my sister off. Pizza and take-away for dinners, tea on the couch with Mum and Nan, Dad out on the barbecue for lunch. These moments, these profoundly familial moments that dotted childhood with pleasing regularity, become few and far between as people grow up, move away, come in and out of the nest. How often do we get to boil the kettle and sit with three generations around the coffee table, talking about the time Mum’s caravan drove into a lake in Croatia in the 70s?
Not often enough.
With all of this flux, this moving around, these comings and goings, hellos and goodbyes, here is what’s around.
hunting for bliss
16 October, 2012 at 1:50 amIt’s always a good reminder to be here now. 🙂
Liv
16 October, 2012 at 10:17 amRight here, right now.
Isa
16 October, 2012 at 6:21 pmBeing in the ‘present continuous’ is an arduous task. Manageable, nevertheless juxtaposed to ‘present continuous past and future, of course ;). Your life reads life a picture perfect romcom/family soap, if you pardon the allusion; in fact it’s diatmetrically opposed to my world so that’s why the ‘film’ appears so ‘perfect’! Good job I don’t aspire to perfection otherwise I’d be really annoyed reading all your posts and never visit your ‘Big Life’ again. Bit slow this morn, can’t think of the d-word I really want to write, something to do with being poles apart. D-….
Liv
19 October, 2012 at 10:33 amPffft, picture perfect indeed. Although I do love the idea of living in a romcom … people in romcoms always have loft apartments and excellent wardrobes.
Isa
16 October, 2012 at 6:31 pmWere you thinking of the Beatles song whilst writing this piece? Ohrwürm nightmare atm:….’you say hello, and I say goodbye,….hello, hello….I don’t know why you say hello, I say goodbye…..’ – or however it goes. Very annoying indeed……
Isa
16 October, 2012 at 7:41 pmYour ‘Look around’ pitch brings back this: The Look Around You series, a spoof doc on BBC school progs, especially this one on Germs, they come from Germany: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=615xoftud5k
And check out this: Made with the co operation of Haaben Industrie GmbH (hahah)
Isa
16 October, 2012 at 7:42 pmIsa
16 October, 2012 at 7:45 pmThis is the correct Germs from Germany Look around you link!
Isa
16 October, 2012 at 7:43 pmSorry, the Calcium vid, isn’t the one on Germs. I can’t get rid of it. Sorry.
poppyredifa
18 October, 2012 at 11:22 amSpot on about life.
The ‘boiling kettle’ chat resonates with me too.
Liv
19 October, 2012 at 10:34 amI think boiling kettle chats should be had more often. They are little gems of life.
sarahayoub
19 October, 2012 at 8:33 amOh Livvy. You with the magical prose. Love opening up my google reader after two weeks, and just getting stuck in your talent for words. Wishing I had tea breaks on the couch with my Nan. Is your sister going to Beirut? Just wrote a travel story on it for Yen.I can offer recommendations, Lebanon is beautiful.
Liv
19 October, 2012 at 10:35 amThank you! She is going to Beirut, although Mum just looked up the Department of Yadda Yadda Yadda and it said to avoid Beirut at the moment, so not ideal! But I am horribly jealous of her trip, my feet are itching once more.