600
It’s Day 600 of living without Marco. Well, technically Marco was home for a short visit at Christmas and I’ve been to Australia now 5 times, but actually Day 600 of our journey. I haven’t posted for some time, I don’t believe I even mentioned our brief trip to Tasmania (although those of you who are Facebook friends, may have noticed my obsession with the Tasmanian Devil).
Well, about a week ago, my house became much emptier. Last week Marieke moved on to Montreal to do her Masters in Art History and the house just became very very quiet. The cats and I. Phew, am I that woman? A cat lady by default? Well, they are lovely, and great company, but I won’t be having 28 of them, so I think I’m okay. But, IS the house really quiet? Do I feel very very alone?? Do I yearn for the sound of the human voice??? NO I DO NOT! Why?? Because of my freaking iPad, that’s why!
So, just an aside – do you remember the Spartans and their 300 men battling the Persians (480-479 BC)? The Greek force was very small but determined (Marco and I) to make a stand against the huge Persian army (Harper). Imagine a fight so hard there were actually 600 Spartans needed to win, not just 300! Well, we’ve been battling this separation just like that! But the evil is so great (King Darius=Steven Harper) that we needed 600 days to conquer it!! How did we conquer this separation? We called in the help of the infamous warriors, the iPads! Okay, I know this analogy is a bit of a stretch, but Marco was very excited to have it included in my blog. 600 days is a big deal and, in his mind, he imagined us battling evil, while all the while, we’ve actually been having a bit of fun.
So, how are things after 600 days with the help of our iPads? A typical evening at home – iPad buzzes.
Marco: Hey, I sent you that info on Tasmania that (garble…poor connection…waiting…waiting)
Me: I can’t hear you. Bad connection. Oh, I was going to tell you….(Marco interrupts)
Marco: How are the cats?
Me: Why did you interrupt me? I was just in the middle of telling you something.
Marco: I can’t hear you. You’re frozen. I’ll call you later.
Phone rings…it’s Mom.
Mom: I tried to Facetime you but you didn’t answer.
Me: I was talking to Marco.
Mom: How are the cats? Is that Paulus purring? Put the receiver closer.
Me: (iPad buzzes) Oh, that’s Marco trying to Facetime me, Mom – I’ll call you back. Hi Marco.
Marco: Hi. That’s better. How’s Paulus? Can I hear him purring?
Me: Yes, that’s him. What are you having for supper?
Marco: I’m making a salad with an entire cup of tahini dressing on it. Looks good, hey? Can I call you later? Casimir just texted and said he was going to try to FaceTime me.
Me: Okay, talk to you later. (iPad buzzes) Hi Marieke, how’s Montreal?
…and so it goes, thanks to our friends the iPads. With cutting edge technology, we’ve managed to make it to Day 600! We’ve stared at the great divide, Mr. Harper, and we didn’t back down…in the words of Sara Mclachlan (Marco wanted this included in this post somehow, a favorite of his – we know that this song is about something completely unrelated, but there are a few words that fit nicely)…
“Listen as the wind blows from across the great divide – voices trapped in yearning, memories trapped in time – the night is my companion, and solitude my guide.”
So, I have a love/hate relationship with the very thing that kept me sane over this past two years. Isn’t that typical? To fall in love with your captor? Don’t get me wrong, it’s better than writing a letter and waiting 3 weeks for a response. It’s wonderful to talk to a face and not just a voice over the phone. It does, however, have its challenges. Delays, staring at the ceilings of our loved ones while they cook dinner…misunderstandings because it’s not always easy to read someone over a video that is sometimes patchy…interrupting each other due to a delay in audio…watching your partner’s frozen face, typically we freeze when we either have our mouths wide open, or a grimace, or with a tilted head so the person on the other end can see five frozen minutes of the inside of our giant nostrils. It is a test – of that I’m certain.
We’ve managed it all pretty well. Sometimes we just email for a bit because it seems easier to make ourselves understood, it’s a chance to be thoughtful. But having said all of that, I am DONE. This has been a great adventure, we still have our very exciting trip to New Zealand to look forward to in October and I am sad to see my visits to Australia coming to a close. Two years will have been long enough to live apart most of the time and then intensely close in a tiny apartment for 3 week periods. I think we’ve done it beautifully, to be honest and although I can’t speak for Marco, I think he’d say the same. We made the right decision and it’s been a great adventure.
The biggest irritation right now would have to be talking on this freaking piece of technology every day, to the majority of my family (thank you Casimir for being in the city and not a big fan of communication by technology). Well, glad I got that off my chest. Have to run. Going to Facetime Marco! Oh, and then maybe I’ll check in with Marieke…oh, I hear my Mom calling – she must want to talk to the cats.
Next post…who knows? Maybe I’ll fill you in on my fascination with the reproductive habits of the Tasmanian Devil…By the way, this post was written with some suggestions from my partner in crime…across the great divide, but by email this time.
question, it was because of my own insecurities and my need for approval.
In the words of Dr. Seuss…“How did it get so late so soon?”
painting. I wrote in my last blog about how it calmed my mind. What I realize is that it also gives me an outlet for expressing myself, something I have been trying to achieve with my blog posts. Sometimes, however, words actually get in the way of what I’m feeling. It’s hard to explain, but a friend of mine who paints, talks about her watercolours sometimes getting ‘muddy’. I think I know what she means – you work and work the painting until you’ve lost it. The colours may become less transparent, the work gets muddled and you wish you’d known when to stop. Words are like that too, I think. When I write, I try to search for the ‘essence’ of what I’m feeling, but sometimes I clutter that up with too much detail, too many words.
Through painting, I’m feeling less of a need to write my feelings down. So far, my paintings are mostly of birds, so I’m not exactly painting what I’m feeling in the moment. However, when I play with the colours and watch them meld together, it gives me what I call my ‘hummingbird calm’ – that feeling I wrote about in my very first blog. The feeling that carried me through the death of my Father last fall, and the departure of Marco in January. The feeling that I tried so hard to replicate in the months after Marco left. I found it in the most unlikely of places – standing at the kitchen counter of Marco’s tiny apartment one day, playing with paint. Somehow I discovered strength and peace in the simple process of adding water to colour.
When I wrote my blog last week, I was, as I often am, struggling with what I call ‘ the noise in my head’. I’ve often described the inside of my mind as a ‘quidditch’ match. Thoughts tearing around like a tasmanian devil up there. I enjoy my active mind, but sometimes I just wish it would be a calm and restful place. Especially while I’m on vacation. How was I to achieve that? Well, I know there are dozens of books about ‘quieting the mind’, but it has to come from within and there are no books that can help with that part of it. I’ve tried mediation, tai chi, reading calming books – they all help a bit, but for a very short time.
s, my pencils always needed sharpening, my charcoal usually snapped. I loved it! In those moments or hours, I was oblivious to what was going on around me. My cheeks would get flushed, my heart would race…my drawings were often big and there were no delicate pencil lines. The past few years I have done very little art, and when I do, it’s just not the same. I have arthritis in my hands, so they cramp up (especially with my tight grip on whatever I’m using to draw). Drawing is also not something that I enjoy as much when I do it alone – I have always loved life drawing, in a room filled with the energy of other artists. I’ve struggled to find something that can match that experience.
While in Australia, I decided to try watercolour. This is a medium I have used only once or twice in a class (many years ago), but I have always been drawn to the colours – the way they meld together, the layers…the immediacy of it. After observing many birds here, I was drawn to their tremendous colours, some stunning in their brightness and others so gorgeous and muted. I picked up some basic supplies, watched a couple of YouTube videos 🙂 and here are my very first efforts. I set a goal for myself, that I would spend no more than a couple of hours per painting (I have a tendency to overwork things) and at the end of the week I would 
share my learning and discovering on my blog. The most important thing I discovered in this process was that for the first time in as long as I can remember, while it’s nice when someone likes what you create, I don’t care in the same way about these paintings – if I love the colours, or see something in the painting that I am excited by, that’s enough for me. When I’m experimenting with this new medium, my mind is empty of anything but what I am doing in the moment. My mind is quiet…
ort while after – it’s kind of like advil, it does wear off), I’m off for a walk to the beach, or to a cafe to read a book. It’s a wonderful feeling. While I am dreading heading back to Winnipeg without Marco (the flight is exhausting, but it also means another goodbye), I plan to take a class this fall and continue painting. My hands are not bothered by this lighter medium, I feel I could do it for hours at a time.
I’m now back in Sydney for my second visit. This visit was easier than the first in some ways as I knew what to expect, where to find things, and we had some exciting travel plans. It has been different, though – it’s winter here and I arrived with a serious case of influenza, which I quickly shared with my partner in crime. With the exception of a couple short outings, we spend the first four days in bed (no, not the honeymoon kind) – high fevers, aching joints, sore throats, hacking coughs…confined to the 350 square foot apartment with no heat. At 6C in the night, we were armed with hot water bottles, medicine and extra blankets. It was a true endurance test!! The first two days, I was the sicker, so Marco was the caregiver. The second two days, Marco was sicker, so I became the caregiver. Then we were just fed up and neither of us really felt up to doing much care-giving. 
crocodiles and snakes as we floated down the Daintree River. We learned that crocodiles only eat stupid people, a sort of natural selection. In fact, two weeks before we went, there was a terrible tragedy involving two women – after too much drinking in celebration of one woman’s triumphant fight against cancer, and after many warnings, the women ran into the ocean (near the Daintree delta) at night in an area that is notorious for crocodiles. One of the women lasted a few seconds before being taken by a crocodile, the other is still in hospital suffering from shock. The saddest part is that they then shoot the crocodile if they can find it, in it’s own habitat.
teachers, volunteering at school, and taxes. Marco was the bike fixer, the guy who could always fix something that didn’t work around the house, whether it was a computer, a light fixture, the washing machine. He was also definitely the ‘plant guy’ – our various homes were always filled with plants, thanks to Marco. Thankfully, we shared the housework (although I think Marco likely did the lion’s share. We didn’t intend for this division of labour to happen, it just did. And, of course, we both compromised often – weighing what was really important and worth fighting over, and what we were willing to give up.
Cockatoo. Click here for a listen – seriously they just screech…from morning until night. 
is locked as well, about 10 feet from the front door. No idea why as it isn’t really keeping anyone important out other than the sad renters who misplace their keys… The neighbourhood is not noted for its violence and anyway, you could just climb over the gate. The apartment has a 
ve, a sink, 2 burners and a small bar-like fridge (as you can see, it doesn’t stop Marco from creating excellent meals). But the view is spectacular – I can wash our 2 cups and 2 plates while I gaze at the ocean – Coogee Beach is in fact, only a twenty minute walk away. And there is a wrap-around balcony with a view, so that’s kind of like having a sunroom, I think. AND there are a zillion great restaurants in the neighborhood!
young and straight off the bald prairie and just couldn’t imagine that anyone would have the nerve to try to drive over me. Or maybe Sydney has just grown – it is nearing 5 million now and that’s a lot of people in my world. I realize that they drive on the ‘other side of the road’ here and that can be a bit confusing, not just as a driver, but as a pedestrian. So, because they intuitively know (or because so many of us just don’t make it home in one piece) they provide us with some clues…I find this helpful and I believe my still intact body has these clues to thank.
As I’m by nature a bit curious, I couldn’t stand not knowing what was up. There was a woman sitting about 10 feet from me, so I asked her if she knew – it was the Sydney Soccer Team on their first day of training. We started to talk and it turned out that she and her husband were musicians – he was the organist for the City of Sydney (who knew?) and she taught at the University of Sydney. She also played the Carillon. They both tour around the world to organ and carillon festivals (if that’s what they’re called). She invited me to a free lunch hour concert at the Sydney Town Hall for the following week to hear a well-known Argentinian organist, and then Marco and I went together to hear her perform at the University. I wouldn’t say that organ is my ‘instrument of choice’ but the performances were excellent and the architecture at the Town Hall was incredible. It turned out to be one of my favorite ‘happenings’ during my time here, especially the Town Hall event.
through a part of the mountain on a cable car, or take a train, or both. Of course we both vehemently refused to get into a cable car, so we chose the train – both up and down the mountain. In hindsight, back up was worse than down, and they may both have been worse than the cable car. However, the view was absolutely breathtaking and we did it – that’s the best part! I know we will both want to go back for another visit before Marco’s finished here, it was so beautiful.
market, the Chip on a Stick. I understand from a friend that they have these in the US as well, but I have never seen them in Canada. I’m sure we have them somewhere, but this was new to me and next to the ‘Poke Bowl’ that was offered by the food stand next to it, this was my favorite new food concept.
introvert and extrovert, instant sleeper and insomniac.Marco found a blog called ‘The Daily Beethoven’ in which Beethoven’s average day is described. He gets up at the same time, counts out 60 coffee beans exactly, makes coffee every morning. He follows the same structured schedule each day followed by a quiet evening reading and listening to music, maybe smoking his pipe. That’s Beethoven – Marco is willing to experiment with a bit more variation, but really he thought the bean counting was accurate. And the pipe…and music…okay, there may be more similarities than I’d first thought. I, on the other hand, am a ball of chaotic movement – I get up, rush around, eat whatever I feel like, including leftovers for breakfast, sometimes leaving a trail of clothes behind me…I hurry to work where I enjoy doing 6 things at once, sometimes forgetting about lunch, sometimes being a bit too dramatic. Then I rush home (I always rush places) and cause more chaos at home before heading off to do something else. I don’t sleep much and I roam around the house at all hours.
ney…four days into my visit and we are settling in to our new reality. We are about to enter our third month of this adventure, so this is still a work in progress. I am still a big believer in the importance of change, but in my eagerness to embrace it before my trip, I decided to dye my hair for the first time in my life – not a serious colour change, just an effort to remove the grey hairs and brighten things up a bit. It seemed like just the thing before my big trip, I’d never done it before and shouldn’t I do it at least once?? Things went well, I didn’t mind my new, slightly darker look, but change isn’t 
outside, wandered around the University, then sat outside on the balcony of Marco’s teensy weensy over-priced Sydney apartment and drank wine while looking out over the city with the ocean view (which, by the way, makes this expensive city worthwhile, at least for 24 months). The next day was Saturday so we had two days before Marco would be at work again. Suddenly, we had to try to find a way to live in this little space – moving the coffee table every time someone needed to stand up; finding a spot for my things; figuring out how to fit both the milk AND the water in the little fridge…those minute details of sharing space. It was like camping, except we hadn’t set up the tent together and somebody else packed the food. On Saturday, we bused downtown and checked out Circular Quay, wandered around the Sydney Opera House (only the outside, it was a beautiful day), drank coffee and ate chocolate at a lovely Belgian cafe…by the end I was exhausted. I spent that evening sleeping and scratching and sleeping some more. Sunday, we took a ferry to the Taronga Zoo – it was hot, filled with screaming over-heated children and it’s up a hill. A huge 
zoo, uphill. While neither of us are ‘zoo’ people, we were excited to see a tasmanian devil, the tiny Australian penguins, kangaroos, wombats, a platypus and some lovely bird life. (I would have preferred to post a photo of the tasmanian devil or the wombat but they shy away from the camera, unlike the good old kangaroo).
Oh, and I spent a couple of hours at Coogee Beach yesterday – forgot that my arms are short and didn’t manage to cover my entire back, forgot that I should put sunscreen on my forehead even though I have bangs so am resembling a blotchy lobster a bit. That hole in the ozone over Australia is for real, everyone. We need to care for our climate or we 
cindy rublee - living without beethoven 