A Delightful Day in London

To wander the streets of London
From Holborn through to Lincoln's Inn Fields
Paying homage to the ghost of Charlotte Charke
First female actor-manager
Who in the 18th century wandered these streets
Desperate for work upon the stage

Down the Strand past the Royal Courts of Justice and
Onto Fleet St, where,
Somewhere along this road
Mordecai, relative in time, was arrested
Caught creating counterfeit cash and
Eventually tried at the Old Bailey
And shipped to Australia
The Royal Bank with a waterfall of tropical
Pink, orange, and yellow flowers
Cascading down its cold walls
Impossibly narrow buildings squished between
"Newer" edifications
Stone monuments that seem fairy-tale like with their
Statuesque dragons and winged horses

Down to the Thames
The buildings that grace its banks
The very sites that in themselves are the 

Synecdoche of London
Tower Bridge, St Paul's, The "Shard" 

The latter, still under construction
The city is still being built
Still growing above its labryntine streets
Winding paths that open to secret courtyards, squares, gardens
And ever more winding paths

To walk from Blackfriars as the sun is still rising
To see the world
"Half-way in shadow
And half-way in light"
It really is, as Bert describes,
"Coo, what a sight!"

The city made more real
By the previous experience of it in books, film, television, and art
To be here in the flesh
Wandering the streets of London
Smelling the city
Watching the workers scurrying away
Women in sneakers and stockings
Men in suits and ties
The same brands on nearly every corner

Stone and glass walls built side by side 

It feels like I must be in an elaborate set

Some two thousand years in the making

The end. 

Reflections from Tanglewood

You expect,

With a name like 

“Tanglewood”

Chaos and mess

And vines and dark woods

And twisting paths. 

Instead there is 

Total order

Calm

And loveliness. 

Sweeping green lawns

Manicured gardens.

Rows of clipped hedges

Form an organized maze. 

Hidden within are

Tributes to musicians past

(Mostly men) 

A beautiful house

With wooden floorboards

And painted walls

And images of musicians past 

(A mix of men and women) 

In the centre of the sweeping grounds

A giant pavilion

The summer home of the 

Boston Symphony Orchestra

World famous

Top notch

Leader in its field 

Thousands of people surround the structure

They have come with picnic blankets and chairs

And baskets full of food

Wine and cheese and chocolates

Even glasses filled with wild flowers

And you sit in the field

On a warm summers day

And the sky grows dark

With threatening clouds

The bell rings

Once, twice, three times!

The concert is about to begin!

And the sky opens up

Sit in a field during the fall of summer rain

Without an umbrella

Rain on your skin

Grass beneath your body

Sky above your head

The feeling of liberation 

The storm passes by

The sun is warm

And dries your skin

The concert commences

Stravinsky’s “Fireworks” Opus 4

Brings unexpected tears

Yo Yo Ma and Dvorak’s Cello Concerto

The sound is perfect

You can hear the bow scratching across the bridge

It is overwhelming 

The accumulative hours of practise

Of the players of the orchestra

Are astounding to imagine 

Imagine all the players as children

Drilling scales in their living rooms 

You are transported to your own living room

More specifically

The living room of your grandparents

To be more precise

Down the hall, to your 

Grandparents’ bedroom

Far away in Sydney

Twenty years ago 

You would wake up and go into their room

And Abuelo would have 

ABC Classic FM playing full blast on the radio

And you would dance to the music

And make him smile

You never talked about the composers

Or the history of the music

But the notes are as part of your legacy as your own blood

(Music passed down through generations

From your mother teaching ballet

Whilst you sat fetal, and later in a pram

Earlier: Abuela and Abuelo at concerts in Manila

Earlier still: Great-Abuelo fetal in Shanghai

While his father (great-great Abuelo) played violin)

And you, four generations later 

Sitting in a field in Massachusetts

As a counselor in music

The history of notes

Imagine being in the theatre when Stravinsky premiered 

The Rites of Spring

The boos and hisses! 

Now, high art 

The tangled web of family and history and influence 

How we came to be 

Where we are

Is orderly when viewed from a distance

Melodic lines able to be traced

Emphasized

Harmonized with

Made discordant 

And written into

Music

The end. 

A Weekend in New York

On a whim I decided to go to New York for the weekend
It is entirely possible from London
If one has a flexible schedule and a willing credit card
So I booked the trip
And flew to New York on the Friday afternoon
And I stayed at my friend's house in Queens
And looked after his cat

I saw a Broadway show
It was even better than the cast recording
It made me laugh and cry and filled me with joy
Then I went to the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
And melted at all the resources they have available for free
I met up with beautiful friends who inspire me
I met five young sailors in Times Square
And the wonderful, delicious musical stereotype of it all thrilled me
New York, New York, it's a...

On Sunday afternoon I went to a recital at Steinway Hall
And watched Walter Hautzig, at age 90, play delicious pieces by Mozart, and Schubert, and Chopin
The walking stick hiding his nimble fingers and lightness of touch
As he played I thought about how musicians from centuries and countries far away can be brought to life right here, right now, through patient learning, through dedication
He talked about learning Chopin's Ballade in G minor at age 16
And how when he was ready to perform it at his school in Vienna
The soldiers marched in and the world fell apart
And Mr Hautzig decided that they could never take away his music
And they didn't
And he ended up working with my great-grandfather in Baltimore
One from Shanghai via Spain via the Philippines
One from Vienna via Jerusalem via New York
And I ended up working with his granddaughter
An Australian in Connecticut
Completely separately, amazing coincidence of strange happenstance
Or are we drawn to the same people in each life time?

Going to the airport, it was chilly
The rain kissed a gentle goodbye
There was even a rainbow
I boarded the plane
And suddenly I was back on the Tube wondering if I had dreamt the entire thing

Moving to London

Left: Abuelo and Abuela in Manilla in the 1950s, Right: Mum and an assortment of (now) uncles and aunts in 1963

Forty-eight years ago you sailed into Sydney and leaned against the railing of the ship 

Thinking of children who weren’t even born yet

All the children with you would one day be grown-ups and married with children of their own

Could you have imagined me, your granddaughter, named after you

Who when she went to Spain for the first time felt strangely at home

Despite the language barrier 

Who longed her whole life to be European, to speak Spanish, who thrilled and delighted at finally getting a Spanish passport 

How would you feel knowing your nieta is not an out and proud Australian

That I cringe at our accents and our inability to speak more than one language 

That I find Australian culture frustrating

That I can’t stand that our national day of pride is a day commemorating a bloody battle thousands of miles away 

That I cannot connect with Australian history because it is so contested 

A few months ago I sailed into Sydney myself

I got up at 5am to watch the lights of Sydney Harbour come into view

And I thought of you leaning against the railing of the Iberia

Could you have imagined as you sailed past Nielsen Park or Point Piper or Taronga Zoo that these would be the sites of my childhood?

Strange to think that the Opera House wasn’t even finished yet 

Could you have imagined me singing in the Opera House?! Or having my year 10 formal at the Zoo overlooking the giraffes looking out to the Harbour? 

Could you have imagined that I would grow up among the eucalyptus and the smell of the Australian bush

And yet never feel at home in it

To feel frustrated every time someone asks “but don’t you feel so lucky?”

In two months, I’m leaving this place

To go to the land where your brothers live

And then to London to seek my own life and put down my own roots

Where I will be in forty-eight years time? 

And what stories will have played out between my arrival at Heathrow and sitting down to reflect on it all?

Abuelo, forty-eight years ago you sailed to Sydney

To a land that for you was entirely sight unseen 

No internet to do your research

No crystal ball to let you know that it was all going to be ok, that you were making the right decision

Our wanderings are not over yet

We are still shifting in time and space 

But wherever we go, there we are

And we have our stories and our ancestors to guide the way