The Power of Yes

In five days I leave for the first leg of my next adventure in Venice.  

I am still bruised from pinching myself that it's happening.  I'm all a giddy. I have seen my friends here in Sydney, I've had a lot of sisterhood bonding and nights of laughter and good cheer.  We've had wildly creative dinner parties, dress ups and downs, deep and meaningfuls over breakfast coffees and outrageous story tellings. I've walked around my beloved home city at night and stood on the prow of the ferry pondering futures. I have been given exquisite, thoughtful gifts by those who wish me well, and I've given, I hope, inspiration to those who'd like to make leaps into the unknown themselves.

A few days ago I woke up feeling quite transportingly happy.  I decided to say YES!  to whatever I was asked. I know that this concept isn't exactly original, but the results can be very exciting.  From this has come a Christmas invitation in a restaurant above a lake.  A new year's invitation in a strange and foreign city filled with turrets and towers.  Lunch in the Piazza san Marco on a sunny September afternoon.  A dress I would never have tried on, never mind purchased as it's so chic, and completely contrary, a burlesque outfit that I'll wear to my final dinner party before I leave Sydney.  I am going to cross all my bridges on this adventure, and I'm not going to worry about how or where the i's and t's are dotted and crossed.   I am going to break rules.

I've been reading books on life in Venice, trying to find my way not only around the language but the folklores and customs of this supremely sophisticated city.   I keep remembering an early quote relating to bridges, that Venetians see them more as transitions to another phase, than a practical means of crossing a bridge.   My transitions are beginning.

It's actually happening.  Giorgio and Sylvia emailed me this morning.  These are their Actual Words. 

  

"and remember you've got a little family in venise!... i'm shure that you will make fantastic necklesses with your new italian life,and venitien ispiration!!!  For the carnaval,yes we will show you the best of it ,to live the good and real part of it.

so,now we wait for you very soon
take care,big and numerous kisses from giorgio and silvia "

And I replied ... 

Non vedo l'ora di vedervi a Venezia molto presto.

Luda and I, wearing my jewellery.

 

Life IS a Box of Chocolates!

ALL MY LIFE I'VE BEEN LABELLED AN OPPORTUNIST.

At first I thought it was a bad title, but as I grew up I realised that in order to make a life for myself, it's important to take chances and opportunities when they present themselves.  All the years I was working as a photojournalist, I'd get assignments in strange and wonderful, and often difficult places.  I'd say yes, and then work out the logistics. Each time I had a remarkable adventure. If the Big Picture works, the smaller details fall into place without much ado.  Chase Komodo dragons? Sure! Microlite through the Bungle Bungles? Why not! Watch and document complicated surgery? Oh Yea!  Eat locusts? Of course.  Sleep in a mud hut? Indeed.  I often played the game of yes, just yes, just because.  There is nothing I regret, except perhaps more of YES.  

I am joyfully optimistic about Venice.  I feel as if my blood has airbubbles in it.  I can't remember a time that I was happier.  I'm enthusiastic about learning the language.  Finding out about the people.  Enjoying the gorgeous clothes, the stunning architecture, the heart stopping art, the theatre and operatics,  the rich and heady cuisine.  I know I will get lost.  I know I may be lonely.  I will definitely be cold.  I might fall over my tongue learning the language.

But I don't care. This is probably the most exciting OPPORTUNITY I have ever had.  So many people have commented that I may love the life so much, I might not come back.  They wish me well, and god speed, and don't forget to blog, and see you one day and good luck. Yet would you believe that some of the people closest to me in the world don't believe it's going to happen, and are expecting me to fall on my face!  To return to Sydney covered with humble pie, humiliated by my hubris, my tail between my legs, my life in penury and my ego finally cut down to size!  What happens if you don't like it? asked one.  Is it still on? questioned another.  What will you have to come back to?  How will you Make Friends?  How will you Earn Money?  Do You Have A Contract?  How Do You Know You won't Get Ripped Off? What if they don't like what you do? Tsk. Tsk.   HUH?

Get a life, you naysayers!!!!!!!  At the very least, I will return with a new language.  A new understanding of a foreign culture.  I will definitely make friends - I'm gregarious and friendly, even with  linguistic challenges.   If I fall on my face, I'll pick myself up, look around and give thanks for where I am, and carry on.  If I'm lonely, I'll go to an art gallery or the opera.  If I'm hungry, I'll go to the Rialto to buy formaggio, verdere, pane and pancetta and come home to make myself a marvellous meal and read a great book or make a riveting piece of jewellery. I'll watch a quiz show in Italian.  I'll never not make money. If I'm bored, I'll take the vaporetto to Burano and walk around with my camera.  If I'm still lonely I'll skype a friend.  If I can't sleep, I'll write.  If I'm cold, I'll make a minestrone.    

I survived Nepal, and that was my own sort of hell, a personal anvil on which my new, strong persona was recently forged.  People who don't take risks are half dead.  I've spoken to so many women since I've been back who have travelled this journey vicariously with me.  I wish I could do what you're doing, they say.   I say to them: Just Do What You Have To.  You only have One Chance.  It's Now.  You can never predict the consequences of doing something, but the consequences of doing nothing are graver.

The only thing in life that is irrevocable is death.  Everything else I can turn around.  This next part of my Year without Clothes hasn't yet begun, but I have already made friends with people in Europe (Thankyou! F!) and I already have plans to meet them in Venice.   I have friends here who will visit me in Venice. (J!)  I have new friends here whom I hope will. (M!)  And to the naysayers who don't have faith that I will make this an even Bigger And More Marvellous Most Amazing Adventure ... Stand Back!   You Aint Seen Nothin Yet.

CHANGING COURSES

My chips were down. My heart was broken. My fortune had been stolen. I'd been betrayed, and dishonoured, and dehumanised.  I'd become a snivelling wreck of the woman I'd spent decades building to. I wanted to run away, most importantly, from myself.

So I left the man who caused my ruin. I sold my home. I farewelled my friends. I closed my business. I sold my car. I fled my city. I left my country.  I took off for a year, with only 11 kilos of clothes and a laptop and decent camera, to learn to write, journal, and photograph, while I followed where the road would take me. 

The long and winding road, definitely. 

This was to be my year without clothes.  Without expectations. 

Half way through it, I found myself working for an antique dealer, who installed me in an apartment, and I was enrolled in a language school in Venice.

I'd gone from the pits in Nepal where I spent two months, cold and miserable, to traipsing around Morocco, Turkey, England and Italy, with my bestie Luda, where I miraculously landed the several months gig working as a jewellery designer for the antique dealer in Venice. 

If you had asked me what I wanted most in my life at this juncture ... it would be this. Io sono eccitato. I have enrolled at the language school, I have an apartment near a canal.  I have the world at my muddy feet.

I will be working with and living under the generosity of two wonderful people - Giorgio and Sylvia, whom I met by a series of serendipitous events over the past few months.  If I could try to imagine anything more wonderful for this stage of my life ... I'd fail.

I have no idea what the next months will unveil ... but five months ago, in Nepal, I wrote the same thing and a world of adventures are between then and now.  I am alive, happy, putting on weight, and my fingers are bruised from all my wood touchings.

I think all this would make a great film - Write, Click, Recover!  What do you think? Anyone know any producers out there?

Bling, bling, anyone home?