ODE TO TRIBLY

I am on a plane to Minneapolis, and it has struck me how truly awful I am at gardening. This probably stems (sorrie) from my struggle to remember everyday things, facts or tasks if they are not directly relevant to people. Hello directions! Hello inner workings of binary fission! Hello html code! 

I am told by Myers and Briggs that this is consistent of everyone with my personality type, and thus shouldn’t be too awful a thing to concede, because we have other good things going on that people who remember how to get to their own houses and water their potted plants simply don’t.

I used to work for a magazine. This basically meant that at 10am each morning and to my absolute joy various bizarre things would land on my desk. I have always had a borderline unhealthy fascination with the mail. I remember that when I was seven instead of playing with barbies I would force whichever friend was over to join me in stringing up fake communication networks across my room consisting of paper cups and twine, and we would send enveloped notes to each other down the twine. There was also an invisible ink phase involving large quantities of lemon juice. (Yes, in retrospect my parents should've been faintly alarmed by all of this.)

Anyway so one day at mail time the latest brainchild of a PR maven to wind up on my lime green workspace happened to be a glittery potplant. Why was it glittery? How did the glitter get there? Whatever its intention, it clearly didn’t get the message across in a memorable way, because the point is that I can’t remember what the plant was meant to be drawing my attention to at all. Frankly it was far less exciting to me than the survival kit promoting some Man vs. Wild-esque new series that I'd received earlier had been. This had far less emergency blankets and dehydrated rations involved. Nonetheless, because the plant was glittery, I took it home. “What is that?” asked my flatmate, bemused by my apparent conversion from inked to green fingers. “It’s a potplant I got sent at work today.” “Why is it glittery?” “Certain things can’t be explained, Renée.”

I named it Tribly. A fact which now also remains inexplicable to me. I watered that thing carefully, for a time. So novel! A plant! To think, I am sustaining life! And I don’t even have to take it for walks, or buy it food! Then the novelty wore off, at a rate directly proportionate to which the glitter did. Tribly began to display disturbing changes in texture and give the Leaning Tower of Pisa a run for its money; covering the counter with disintegrating, vaguely shimmery debris in its pleas for attention.

“Tribly’s dying.” I said dejectedly one day to no one in particular. “That’s because you forgot to water it again.” One of my cohabitants pointed out. “I feel like this bodes badly for any future attempts at motherhood. Or holding down a relationship. What were Sandra Bullock’s rules in 28 Days for recovering drug addicts? I think they weren’t allowed to date until they had successfully kept a plant alive, and then a small house pet. I haven’t even made it to HOUSE PET!”

I was depressed about it for a while, mostly because of my inherent fear of failure.  Then I remembered that both motherhood and relationships involved other people, and so hopefully that would all be fine. Then I flew to Australia for a month, and if ill-fated Tribly had not resembled a wizened desert cactus pre-walkabout, then good lord, he certainly did upon my return.

“I think it’s time to throw Tribly away.” My flatmate whispered, with a consoling pat on my back as if to soften the blow. “It’s ok.” said I, bravely. “I got the new iPhone while I was in Sydney. I have Siri now. Far less risk of dehydrating her than Tribly. If anything, I think she’s supposed to look after me, or something. That’s my kind of postmodern house pet."

Maybe potted plants aren't for some people. My plan is to go and find these people and join their foliage-free cult imminently.

It's going to be really nice.

ON LOOP: LIONS AND WITCHES

This song by Sydney indie kids Tigertown has become a bit of a happy place; I don't even know how it happened. 
I think maybe they are Narnia fans too - but that's sheer speculation at this point.

CARPE DIEM

Today was a crying-at-my-desk, heavy boots kind of day. 

I spent a whirlwind, amazing 72 hours in Portland, Oregon two weeks ago. I made new friends, including Brett. Brett was probably one of the funniest guys I've ever met. Which I concede is a major call. But as he workshopped in real time - en masse and circa bonfire - various text messages he was sending to a girl he had just met with us for three hysterical hours, he not only validated my suspicion that boys are as prone to over-analysis as girls are, but elicited the realisation that I was in the presence of comedic greatness. After the dinner/bonfire, the above photoshoot took place. Below right features me losing it immediately after Brett attempted to photobomb us. He is pictured fourth from the left.

Late this afternoon I was slapped by the news that Brett died yesterday. While on the very church camp he had mentioned eagerly anticipating as we demolished a very high stack of $5 nachos a fortnight ago. He drowned while attempting to rescue one of the kids who had slipped and fallen into the falls they were visiting. 

...Surely not? 

Surely one operating with such a high-functioning level of joie de vivre dying at the age of 26 violates every unwritten law of the universe? Humans aren't meant to die at 26. Not in real life. I mean, he was planning to come to New Zealand for a fortnight in February with a couple of others, and had liked one of my facebook photos only two days ago. It's unthinkable. 

I'm going to ignore the tears pooling on my keyboard as I get this down. I'm not part of Brett's immediate community. I'm a foreign correspondent, who knew him for a matter of days. I'm not able to be there and grieve with others who knew him, and swap stories about bantering Mulan quotes a few margaritas in, or his pride in his ability to take the perfect "girl" shot ("it's all about the downwards angle..."). So I'm doing the most comforting thing I can think to do... I'm writing it down.

How is it possible that his life so impressed upon mine in a few short days that I am grief-stricken on the other side of the world? Well that's just the thing with friends, whether new or old. Today's news prompted such a depth of response that it has caused me to question how it is that we gauge others' ability to affect us. The human heart is a tricksy little valve if ever there was one. We are wired to bounce off one another. And after four months' traveling, and myriad conversations with strangers, some of whom became friends, I can attest that it only takes one day, one chance encounter, or one conversation to quite literally change your life, and even its trajectory. 

After our wee photoshoot as above, we stumbled upon a very drunk man, or rather, both literally and figuratively, he stumbled upon us. He then proceeded to rant about #YOLO (or "You Only Live Once" for you rock-dwellers, and which I'm assured is just "carpe diem for idiots") and upon leaving, said Happy Drunkard threw his hands up at me, Brett and friends and said "I LOVE YOUR LIVES!". We then spent the rest of the week laughing and hashtagging YOLO wherever we went. Because we are post-post-ironic like that.

Had we known what lay ahead, I'm sure we would've been less casual about it. If anything, that phrase will now simply haunt me for a really long time. I suppose because it is true. Painfully true.

Someone's premature death always serves as a plea to the rest of us to use our breath of a time here well. What would the world look like if there were 6.8 billion of me running around? Would it be a good place? I'd like to think it would be more utopia than dystopia. Then some days I'm not so sure. Am I simply highlighting the darkness, or seeking to diminish it? Could I even be contributing to it? Are my words, my creativity, my conversations, adding to the darkness and hopelessness? Or am I somehow contributing a different voice?

There's nothing like an abrupt reminder of your own mortality to spark a philosophical stocktake of your entire existence. Maybe we should ask ourselves hard questions more often. Maybe encountering Brett and his insane zest for life, and truth, was a gift I was incredibly lucky to receive.

Maybe we only live once. 

And maybe we'll be held to account for how we do it.