Christmas: the holiday I have come to dread in Australia. It is not the country's fault that Christmas falls at the beginning of a sweltering summer. That instead of thick wool coats and scarves, there are bikinis and thongs (flips flops, sandels, jandels, whatever you want to call them). I personally am a fan of layering clothing because I think it's more flattering on my body--and I don't need to spend the entire day clenching my abs to keep my stomach from jiggling when I walk. It seems very wrong to put up a Christmas tree while listening to "White Christmas" in 38C (100F) heat. Not only does my body not want to peel itself off the ground to hang ornaments, but it's hard not to find the music annoying when I would love nothing more than to roll around naked in snow.
Instead of decorating, I stick my head in the freezer and pretend it's snow. I feel momentarily better, but I can't stand there like that all day--I've tried. Baking any holiday treats is out, because having an oven going for more than 5 seconds in that heat is just plain stupid--as if I wasn't sweating before, I'd have to climb into the freezer after having the oven on long enough to bake anything. I tried one year and found that baking is only fun when the oven heats the room to a desirable temperature, not when it melts your eyeballs every time you open it to check if the cookies/biscuits/whatever are done.
Even without the homesickness, it's hard to force what I want Christmas to be in Australia. The obvious reason is that it's summer. A time for picnics and swimming, not ice skating and hot feasts of comfort food. After four years, I am tired of fighting it. Tired of wearing wool holiday sweaters until I get heat stroke, drinking peppermint hot chocolate and eating the cookied I laboured for hours to bake in nothing buy my underwear. I am tired of decorating my plastic tree with sweat dripping down my back, when I would rather just be sitting on the couch watching tv and drinking a cold beer. Christmas shopping is a nightmare--no matter what country you are in. Visiting the family is a 12 1/2 hour drive through a hot desert. The only comfort there is the cars we rent are air conditioned--my apartment is not.
So instead of forcing my traditions on a summertime Christmas, I decided that I would work with it. Beach resort holidays with a frozen cocktail in my hand (I have yet to achieve that, but give me time), or camping trips through some of the southern tracks in Australia (and maybe one day New Zealand). Yes, I have learned to take the week I get off from work and do something with it. An adventure. Away from the oppressive heat and lack of fresh air in my apartment. Away from trees and suddenly ironic Christmas carols. Why would I spent the week given to me of lovely summer weather indoors eating copious amounts of food when I could be outside challenging myself on a hike or lounging around on a beach?
So this year, I've picked my challenge. I'm hiking the Great Ocean Walk, an 104km track along the wild Southern Ocean coastline of Victoria, near the historic Great Ocean Road. Sweeping views of limestone cliffs, scrublandand endless sandy beaches. Not a bad trade.
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
I am a Lighthouse Keeper
But the book has gotten me thinking about how much I would love to have been a lighthouse keeper--solitude, night watches as a keeper of the light, warning sailors and ships of the dangers in the night, looking out over the ocean and watching it change from calm to storm. It is a job I will only ever fantasize about, but will never know. I suppose even I am growing a bit weary of city lights.
Cities are full of the endless buzz of people, running home, running to work, running to buy useless things, go to useless parties, sporting events and theatre shows, the newest restaurant, the trendiest bar. Keeping up with it all sometimes feels like you are running in a giant hamster wheel--and I am not a very good runner. I love the energy of cities when I was a child, the constant hum of people and cars, the lights that never dimmed were such strong attractions to me. People were crowded together, someone was always awake and things were always happening. But that was before I had to cram on to the train every morning and push past all the slow walkers on the street. Before I cared about what phone I owned or what shoes I wore. Before I had to pay for dinners out or movie tickets. Before there were price tags and rent prices and sleepless nights.
It's not that I want my quarter-acre block in the suburbs with my three bedroom house and SUV, because I don't. I commend people who want that life and manage to have it, but it was never for me. I would rather stay in my one bedroom apartment as the city grows around me and the trains fill up more than live in the suburbs. I would actually rather have less than more. As my life gets more complicated as I age, I grasp at the things that make it simple.
Like the thought of lighthouse keeping. Routine. Good food, good tea. Watch rotation like on a tall ship--another dream career that I would never be able to follow. Keeping the light. Solitude. The glittering night sky. The endless ocean. Trips back to civilization just to catch up on being around people--just enough to want to go back again. Forget that being a lighthouse keeper and a tall ship sailor were positions held by men in those days. So I want early 20th century jobs with 21st century feminist rights (if indeed they are actually advancing like we hope). It is easy to romanticize when you have grown a bit tired of the city and the buildings and its people close in around you.
Sometimes you need the fresh air and the solitude. The time away from the things that distract us--like the great distraction, the INTERNET and its good friends the smartphone, the laptop, the TV and the tablet. I enjoy getting away, not knowing the news and the happenings of my closet 400 friends, so I can simultaneously feel happy for them and wonder what the hell is going wrong in my own life. We know it's wrong, but we all do it. We compare ourselves to our peers and then wonder why we feel so miserable. At times like that, I feel I need to step off the hamster wheel and seek out some solitude, preferably while staring out at an endless ocean. But I am not above forest or mountain top.
It is very easy to feel small when standing in a natural expanse. Small in a way no man-made structure can make you feel. Small in a way that every problem, you or any member of humanity may have suddenly feels insignificant, that you are in the presence of some kind of magic, something that has been going on for billions of years. We are just taking a short glimpse of it and often taking it for granted.
I would be nice to be able to live a life where I had to stop more often and appreciate those moments, those realisations. It would be nice to slow down, simplify a little more. Rather than always run in that little wheel rushing from one thing to the next, every moment crammed together full of things I have to do. How nice to just slow it down once in a while.
I swear I not a Luddite. My work focuses on the wonders of digital photography and digital preservation. I like ebooks. I own a tablet and a smartphone and a laptop. It's just I don't love them. Most people I know would be lost without their phone, I often feel mildly inconvenienced and then relieved. It's not that I get as many phone calls as I used to when I lived in the States, but I still enjoy the freedom from being constantly tethered to the rest of the world. I don't have to feel guilty for ignoring them.
Sometimes it's nice to just look out the window. It's also nice to have a conversation with someone who isn't looking at a screen at regularly intervals instead of you. Sometimes it's nice to see the world rather than stare at pixels. Sometimes I wish I was that lighthouse keeper, silently tending to the light in the middle of the night. Guiding sailors to safety and staring up at the night sky.
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