Han...

I bought myself the West Wing on DVD for my birthday in February. All seven series, twenty-two episodes per season. Throughout seasons one and two I was flooded with memories of Tuesday nights in Abbotsford, evenings of popcorn and "doona on the couch", of red wine with biccies and cheese, of hours-in-the-making risotto. And the West Wing.

Tonight, I'm on Season 5. "Han" is the episode about a brilliant young North Korean pianist who wants to defect. Anti-nuclear negotations are underway with the "Dear Leader's" government so the president says no.

"Han" is presented as the Korean word for a feeling that has no direct english translation. "It's a state of mind, of the soul, really. A sadness so deep that no tears will come. But still there is hope".

I have known this feeling in both its parts.

It's the "But still there is hope" part that makes us able to overcome even the most aching loss, the most gasping grief, the deepest sorrow.

It's the part that makes us able to keep the best of someone in the world long after they themselves have lost the courage to remain, that teaches us to smile through our tears, to keep the remnants of dreams and evolve them into something wholly our own.

I'm changing. I think you'd be proud of who I am becoming, (even if your pride might be a little dented at the idea that I have, by necessity, learned to live without you)... but that's not why I am going through this. You will always be the greatest love of my twenties, and this great grief is still painful. But I am in my 30s now. And I am going through it for me.

Standing in someone else's shoes...

...living someone else's life. Sometimes I wonder if the life I am living is yours - the one you would have lived, if you had lived, and if you had learned to overthrow your fear.

For so many years I was in awe of your worldly upbringing: the new years' parties at ambassadorial residences (when you were 7), the grade 6 trip to Greece, to say nothing of the authentically egalitarian fundraising that went on for years beforehand, so that no kid could be excluded by their family's lack of means. Your travels around the world, the summer internship in Vienna, medic days in the navy, the radical parents (o how times have changed) who ignored local scorn for the single mum whose husband had committed suicide and left their only child with her to care for, and who made jokes about porn to embarrass your teenaged mates.... I was in awe of your education, your five languages, your latin, your encyclopaedic knowledge of history, your citizen-of-the-world view of life.

I was in awe... of you.

Now, I suddenly find I'm living a life I could never have imagined for that tongue tied, monolingual, clever-but-narrowly-educated, ardent-but-illogical, most-of-all shy girl from the outer eastern suburbs of Melbourne. I am working for the UN. I am living in Rome. I go to the beach on friday nights and drink cocktails while the sun sets over the Mediterranean and talk about world politics and why WFP still sells bottled water. I work with women who have delivered aid programmes in Afghanistan and North Korea and get training on how to withstand hostage taking from a bloke (I kid you not, his name is Gordon Brown) who had his leg nearly blown off in Pakistan last June.

I wish you were here. You would love this. You would love just knowing that someone you know is doing this.

I find it humbling beyond words to realise that it is ME doing this.

And on the lonely weekends, where I have only my own four walls to talk to, I understand the constant pressure to succeed and shine and impress, the desire to ring home for hours on end and never mind the huge phone bills; the urge to go outside, anywhere, just to be out of the house... I understand the utter frustration of being the "dumb foreigner" who can't speak the language well enough to ask for even the most mundane things. And I understand, as I never did before, how sometimes the longer you're away the harder it is to go home, and how easy all that makes it to stay up too late at night and have one too many vinos.

I understand the fear of failure because I have seen it reflected in my own eyes. (Sometimes, this job is so hard. I wonder if I can bear it.)

But I also know the joy of finding a laneway whose crooked shadows reveal unexpected treasures; the old guy in a leather apron who repairs shoes for a pittance (he's just off the Piazza of the Trevi fountain, btw); the pure grinning joy of being on a bicycle in the sunshine, ignoring the faceful of windblown hair in eyes and mouth, of discovering the special places that do some signature dish, or a piece of clever recycling, or that flavour of icecream you've never found anywhere else in the world and may never again. (Fig, by the way, is my latest favorite.)

I know the frustration of making a million shallow acquaintances and the glow of wondering if perhaps this person might become a true friend.

Life is hard. Sometimes it's achingly, crushingly, lonely and sometimes bad things happen that make us want to weep. Sometimes - too often - in the wider world, those bad things are done by people, to other people. But there is always some little thing, waiting around the corner, in the smile of a child, the love in a friend's voice, the arm of a lover, or just the glitter of sunlight on the river, that makes it all worth while.

And yet.... in our quest for glory its so easy to forget those things... I wish I knew what it was about human nature that drives us to forget the good things and go diving into the darkness, following it all the way to the bottom of the glass.

It doesn't have to be this hard - this impossibility that we make for ourselves with the messages inside our heads. We may not be able to change the circumstances in which we find ourselves, but we can always choose how we respond to them. The truly hardest part is remembering that, even while sitting alone in the gloom.

Staying there can be so tempting.

And perhaps this is the thing, the "one thing" that we wish we could name and bottle....we battered and imperfect souls who have somehow climbed out of the abyss and wondered how we did it when others we have loved - people we thought were stronger than us - have fallen beside us.

I wish, more than ever, that I had had back then the insight I think I may be coming into now. But perhaps that's what makes it so precious, this hard won wisdom, that it requires hard times in order to win it, and few of us come through that are able to see past our own scars.

With or without Saint Nick...

Nick Riewoldt was the number one draft pick in 2000. An auspicious year in many respects.

Last year, I was up at 6.30am to haul my aching head and queasy belly down to the Scholars Lounge (oh how you would love and loathe it!) to watch the Saints vs Geelong in the grand final. The pub was packed by 7am.

In the end, I think I would have to back my dad's assessment of the thing... Geelong have been THE dominant AFL side for the past 3-4 years, and for them to win 2 out of three was somehow fitting. But Lady McLaughlan and I were texting one another "like mad things that texts alot" right through the final quarter, before the Saints finally went down by 12. We both shuddered to think how you would have faced the day. Probably at colquhouns, probably messsy.

Its a new season now, and I am hoping against hope that the boys finally figure out how to avoid "snatching defeat from the jaws of victory". Although with Riewoldt out for an unknown break with a torn hammy, the job just got a whole lot harder.

Still, if the Blues can do it after sacking Fev, surely a side like the Saints can learn that there's is much more to football glory than just one man up front. Even a freak with an amazing boot.

The Saints will always have a special place in my heart... right beside my very own blueboys.

And its all your fault ;-)

Proof...

Italy has given me more than a new home, new job, and new haircut.

Against all odds, and to what I am sure would be your endless amusement, Italy has taught me to enjoy coffee.

Only ever "normale" (I tried caffe macchiato, or 'baby capuccino', but it's somehow not right), taken with almost as much sugar as my engineering colleagues put in theirs, and NEVER ever 'americano'. The proof is in the piccy above.

For the record, anchovies (fresh ones, or marinated, not those fuzzy hairballs they put on pizzas in Aus), possibly artichokes and even the occasional eggplant also make the culinary radar from time to time.

Just don't expect any revolutions on olives. Or tripe. And that goes double for herrings.

Purple people unite against Berlusconi

I can't retell most of the Mikko stories about Italian politics - Berlusconi Corp would be all over this blog like a rash if I did. But after less than a year living in this country, I believe every last one. The man who last year famously commented that he had "spent a fortune on judges, I mean, lawyers" had even the Economist screaming for him to step down by the end of last year.

Now people power is starting to speak. In purple. And people are wearing it everywhere.

I was travelling around Umbria at the weekend (this is Spoleto duomo, above, and near the Rocca below), having just been brought up to speed by my travelling chum Kate, the two of us exchanging constant knowing glances. It took 2 seconds for me to start rummaging around my luggage for something appropriate to wear. Not hard, being me.

And the "viola" in my wardrobe will be on high rotation in the coming weeks and months.

Your dust from a distant sun....

Tell me all the things you would change
I don't pretend to know what you want
when you come around and spin my top
time and again, time and again

No fire where I lit my spark
I am not afraid of the dark
Where your words devour my heart
And put me to shame, put me to shame

When your seven worlds collide
Whenever I'm by your side
Dust from a distant sun
will shower over everyone

Still so young to travel so far
Old enough to know who you are
Wise enough to carry the scars
Without any blame, there's no one to blame

It's easy to forget what you learned
Waiting for the thrill to return
Feeling your desire burn
And drawn to the flame

When your seven worlds collide
Whenever I'm by your side
Dust from a distant sun
will shower over everyone
Dust from a distant sun
will shower over everyone

And I'm lying on the table
Washed out in a flood
Like a Christian feeling vengeance from above
I don't pretend to know what you want
But I offer love

Seven worlds will collide
Whenever I'm by your side
Dust from a distant sun

Will shower over everyone

Brian and bodhrains

Brian McLaughlin is a musician by trade and a teacher by recent profession, and he came to visit from Kuwait this week. Having Brian in town was both gorgeous and bittersweet. Mikko was a huge fan - when he was pissed he used to sing Come out ye Black and Tans and it was only years later I realised it was based on Brian's version with the Celtic City Sons.

He would have loved to have been a fly on the wall for our conversations that first Thursday night - talking about music, our lives at the UN in Rome and as a teacher in Kuwait, and the total impossibility of doing what we were doing ... a single man visiting a married woman and sleeping on the couch. (In Kuwait, the neighbours would be outside waiting for me with rocks to throw at my wanton head. My much more tolerant husband is, by his own folly, trapped in England til tomorrow, and better be appropriately grateful that I wined and dined one of his music mates!!) Actually, it was probably the first time we'd talked as anything like musical peers, and I was all abuzz by it. There was much showing off of new music we have found in the last few years, stuff we've recorded, trading of travel tales and planning our assault on ancient Rome the following day.

Before his visit, I would never have thought to say much to Brian about the Finn, but somewhere into the second bottle of wine, there was a brief comment and shared stories about shock losses and a quiet smile as we acknowledged that some things never quite go away, but that with some long and soulful searching you can find a way to live with the unimaginable. There's a certain peace that comes with the realisation that bitterness - towards them or anyone else who has made the journey more painful along the way - doesn't do anything but twist us in on ourselves and taint our memories of the ones we have loved and lost.

That peace is bolstered by occasional reminders that we have both known and respected a rare human being, who attracted admiration wherever he went.

First Naples, now Reykjavik

McDonalds is being forced out of another European city, although for very different reasons to Naples, where the good folk of the town sent the golden arches packing.

I'm not complaining, and I know someone else who wouldn't be either!

Thank you Helen the Groupie

Okay, confess, I'm writing this one months after the fact, because it's taken many, many retellings, and a whole lot of late night musings to truly understand the gift given me during my first weekend in Florence, in October 2009.

My travelling chum Helen from Oxford had had meetings in Florence for work (some people get all the dud jobs ;-), so Ants and I hopped the train after work one Friday to go catch up. I'd first met Helen through music open nights, which she attends with gusto, earning her nickname because she doesn't play a note herself, but is brilliantly supportive of her friends. She likes a vino too, so catching up in Tuscany was an exciting prospect.

It had been quite a big day - eating, accompanied by drinking, followed by walking around in awe of Florence's marble-faced, magnificent everything. Chattering, more imbibing, indulging and meandering, gobsmacked. I was rapidly becoming engrossed in the notion that the Medici didn't entirely deserve their reputation of "one of Europe's most ruthless families". For a start, anyone who held power in Italy had to develop a ruthless edge - consider, for example, the Visconti with their meticulously documented slow death, which alternated a day of torture with a day of rest, for forty days and nights, for their worst enemies. Machiavelli's The Prince pales by comparison.

By midafternoon I was in awe of Lorenzo 'Il Magnifico', who perceived and fostered such talents as Leonardo, Raphael, Michaelangelo and many more, who so loved his city and was loved by the people he served (not ruled). If the Renaissance had a pater and patron, it was he.

Exploring the wonders of the Duomo facade, the amazing pietro dura landscapes in the Medici chapel and Michaelangelo's amazing marbles - Dusk and Dawn, Night and Day, along with David, and countless others in the Piazza della signoria, I couldn't help thinking of my favourite champion of the Renaissance, and understood with new eyes why he loved this period so.

So as the night wore on, and H and I drained both our bar fridges of prosecco, talking 19 to the dozen in that way you do, perhaps it was inevitable that I hit one of my spectacular downers, full of tears and that all consuming aching that just leaves emotions awash, and me feeling like a bit of a fraud for kidding people that I've 'rebuilt' a 'life after Mikko' that is robust and balanced and healthy. Like fuck I have, when I'm in that space.

And I love H for her response, delivered carefully and lovingly, after we'd already talked for hours about life, the universe and everything both in it, and no longer in it.

By her own admission, she's never understood depression, and why people can't 'just' sort themselves out - except that, having seen people she loves try and fail, she says she respects that for a depressed person, it's just not that easy.

BUt her pearl of wisdom was this:

"I wish I knew what to say, or do, for you to make it hurt less. From the way you talk about him, he was obviously a remarkable man, and you clearly adored him, and loved the years you shared with him. But what I don't understand is why you let him keep hurting you. How long are you going to keep giving him credit for everything you have done over the past five years?"

I felt like I'd been hit by a thunderbolt. H obviously worried she'd gone too far. But something struck a chord, and made sense, even through the fog of booze and grief. In that moment, though fuzzy intellect barely knew how to process the thought, something in me began to shift, evolve, and see through slightly different eyes... a new way forward.

I don't want losing Mikko to stop hurting. I don't want to forget the bits of him that were brilliant, that shaped me, and I want to keep sharing them with the world because I think the world can continue to be a richer place for him having been in it, even now he is gone.

But I do need to stop him from hurting who I become, my work, my adventures and my marriage to Anthony, which sometimes his self destructiveness and my grief still threaten to do.

If I was quiet the following day, it was easy to blame our hangovers, but in fact I was lost in thought. Much to consider, integrate and grow into. It's been months, and the memory of that moment is fierce and clear, although I haven't always known what to do with this new seed. Fitting really, that I came to this precious spark of knowledge in the city of enlightenment, cradle of the Renaissance...

And to Helen. Bringer of light to my darkest hours.

Thankyou.

Le Chat noir

I keep seeing this poster everywhere I go. In Rome. It's one of the things that keeps reaching out to assault my eyes and remind me that you arent here to share it with me... And yet I keep forcing myself to remember that this is Rome, not Paris, and this thing is as much on foreign soil as I am. I'm laughing at the irony, as these two high cultures collide, and on this soil, La Bella Vita nails bon gout hands down.