Laura Bloom's Open Salon Blog

Dirty weddings, done dirt cheap

Mon, 6 Feb 2012 20:02:02 -0500

The average cost of a wedding is going up. An article in the Sydney Morning Herald (http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/weddings/lifting-the-veil-on-the-true-cost-of-saying-i-do-20120205-1qzrp.htmltoday) reports that the average amount spent on a wedding these days in Australia is $35,000. And that, whereas in the past, parents of the couple would have paid for most of it, these days it’s the couple themselves who will foot the bill.

I’m horrified. And inspired to start a movement: Say no to the wedding industrial complex. Hm. That's hardly catchy. I have a better idea, I’ll start a business called ‘Generic Weddings'. Generic Weddings would be a business based on the fact that weddings, and in fact the whole notion of romance, is generic. It’s a narrative that we all intimately know. A Generic Wedding would feature a lot of flowers and a lot of white. Unless you opted for ‘Something different’ and then it would feature a lot of temporary tattoos and a lot of black. Guests would be requested, as a favour to the couple, to act all outrageous and/or outraged. It would have a cake – most definitely a cake, I very strong feelings about cakes – and the bridal couple would dance. Or not. If the couple chose ‘uptight wedding’ or ,rather, ‘tasteful’ they would raise a glass to one another, instead.

What makes me sad is that spending up big just as you're setting out is a recipe for disaster. To the woman who has a fantasy of what her wedding day is going to be like, I would say that the Prince Charming of your childhood fantasies now has a face and a name and it’s time to get real about the relationship as well. People – mainly people with something to sell - like to say to the bride ‘well it’s your day. You should have it how you want it to be.’ I couldn’t agree less. When you were single every day was your day. Now you’re getting married. It’s your relationship’s day. That means you should make your relationship your number one priority in every decision about your wedding that you make. From how much it costs to how much time and stress and energy you’re going to pour into it. To the couple who want to stun and amaze their community with a stunning wedding, I would say do that by staying happily married for a long time.

The central fallacy of the wedding industrial complex is that you’re special. And that specialness should be expressed or reflected somehow in the myriad trivial details of your wedding. But the thing is, none of us are that special, we're pretty much like most other men and women in most ways. A lot of human experience is universal, and there’s a lot to be enjoyed and celebrated in that fact. To me a wedding, far from being a celebration of a couple’s uniqueness, is a celebration of a universal rite of passage in the human journey. And there’s a kind of simplicity and peace in accepting and honouring that.

In spite of the the fact that our wedding almost broke up our relationship, I like being married I think it’s beneficial for a couple, for any children they might have, and for the wider community for two people who love each other to make a commitment in front of their friends and family. I’m pleased, if somewhat amazed, that gay and lesbian couples want to join an institution that has been so smeared and trashed by straight people for centuries. It’s a sign, to me, of an essential goodness in the idea of marriage that its appeal and relevance endures.

Just a simple white dress and bunch of flowers picked from the garden will do. The groom should wear something that he feels comfortable in ...

The Leopard Print Luggage

Fri, 19 Aug 2011 16:08:59 -0400

I walked past this shop nearly every day on my way to my favourite cafe. It was called 'She Loves Feathers', and the window display was always beautiful. I never went in, though. Shopping drains me, from chatting to the assistant, to trying on the clothes. I love clothes, but I hate buying them.

However, as I passed this shop last week, I was reminded of the article I'd read about it in our local paper the previous day. The owner of the shop had died in January, the article said, and the contents of the shop were her legacy. Intrigued, I ventured in. It was the usual overwhelming mass of stuff that I find hard to sort through, let alone want enough to buy. I was about to turn around and leave when my eye happened upon a matching set of leopard print luggage, and a pink sequin carry-on bag. 'I want that', said my brain. 'That's exactly the kind of luggage I've always dreamed of.' I always feel better when I have something to concentrate on. The noise and commotion of bargain hunters around me faded as I examined the luggage. The handles worked and the lining was in tact. The pink carry-on bag was durable and strong. And yet ... something in me hesitated.

Over a bowl of minestrone, I pondered. The reasons for buying it: this was my dream luggage, the bags I had always wanted. And at half price. It was meant for me! The reasons against: Because somehow, when it came down to it, this didn't feel the way I had thought being with my dream luggage would feel. And that was because it hadn't been just the luggage I was dreaming about. It was the life - which I can barely recall now. One reason we fixate on material objects, perhaps, is because other details are often too subjective and fleeting to recall.

It probably had something to do with summer in the south of France. Not the South of France as it is now, but that of the 1930s, when Colette lived there in a little house by the sea with her lifelong housekeeper Paulette, when almost no one had heard of St Tropez. It had something to do with the Gare du Nord of the same era, when Nancy Mitford's incomparable heroine Linda Radlett burst into tears on the platform and was picked up by a Count - who turned out to be the love of her life. In short, the dream luggage had turned up, but not in the correct reality. A reality that I had to accept was never going to happen to me now.

And not just because it was set in the 1930's. After all, we all have a shot at creating our own realities, and I'm sure there are some women, somewhere, living a reasonable semblance of that life, with rustic beach cottages and romantic rendezvous. But also because I was embedded in this reality - mired in it, you could say. Living in a small country town, mother to a dependant little boy. Writing, cooking, playing in the garden. It's not a bad life - in fact it often feels like a really great life. What's more, it is the fulfilment of many of my dreams. But it comes at the cost of NOT living out my other dreams. And it feels like reality, with all the squalor and compromises and dailiness reality entails.

Unlived dreams remain so pristine. The life that luggage represented for me had no grime or daily work to do in it. No sadness or pain. And now here was the luggage, and I had to accept that if I bought it I would be bringing it home with me to my life. It wouldn't be taking me there to that life, which I guess, had been my childlike understanding.

But I am 42 now, and in many ways, for the next many years at least, my plans are set. It was now or never for the dream of the leopard print luggage, and so I went in and bought it. The proprietor helped me take it out to the car. It had belonged to his girlfriend, he told me. The one who had died. She had come out to live in this area two years ago from America. God had told her to come here, her partner told me. She was a woman of great faith. And so she opened her shop, met this man, her partner, and for two years they lived together very happily. She didn't tell anyone when she arrived that she was very ill.

She had three rules, he told me. 1. Always tell yourself you are beautiful. 2. Always tell other people they are beautiful. 3. Never let anyone speak badly about anyone else in your presence. She'd had a healing, he told me, in Brazil with John of God. 'Why did she die, then?' I asked him. The answer came to me instantly, as if she had spoken in my head: she was healed. She wasn't afraid and she lived out her dreams. But we all have to die one day. Driving home I felt proud to be the new owner of her luggage. Perhaps she'd used it to start her new life, in Australia. Perhaps for her, too, it had represented a dream.

When I got home I looked at myself standing with it in the mirror. It didn't suit me, I realised. Its loudness made me feel uncomfortable. It didn't really reflect my taste. It reflected a dream I'd had that was outdated. All those myriad possibilities I used to dream about have given way, now, to the path I have chosen. I am more limited, but I am also more defined. And if I hadn't bought that luggage and brought it home, I might not have realised I didn't want it any more.

I don't want to keep harbouring dreams that will never happen, and some of them are much more seductive, and wasteful, than the leopard print luggage. They can act as pacifiers, draining me of the energy I need to change what needs changing. Or they can act as distractions, taking me away from the very real happiness and achievement available here for me now. I want to accept and to understand what I have, and what I am, and to do that, it sems to me, I need to clear myself of illusion.

At the same time, though, those dreams were a part of who I was, and who, in a way, I still am. I love that girl who could lose herself so utterly in the aesthetics of another time, or so completely in a story. And so I think I will give that luggage a spin. Partly in respect of their previous owner, Teri, or Dyon as she asked people to call her here - living out the rich tradition in these parts of choosing a new name. And partly to see if perhaps by using that luggage, the dream it used to represent might morph somehow into something that does still speak to me, or somehow bring me into alignment with that old dream.

I intended to take a photo of the luggage and post it here, but in the spirit of mid-life realism I may as well accept I'll never be that organised, and instead this is a photo of one of my favourite authors, and an inspiration for so many of my dreams, Colette.

My Huge Hypocrisies

Fri, 27 May 2011 23:05:23 -0400

I don't have tiny ones, or if I do they are drowned out by the big ones. So large I can hardly take myself seriously on these issues any more. I worry about the planet as I swim with my son in our heated pool in the middle of winter. I watch the haze of warm air lifting as it hits the cold air and marvel at its beauty even as I think about the waste. After twenty years of veganism and being vegetarian I eat fish or meat four or fives times a week now, and always feel better for it. Doesn't mean that as I cook it I'm not thinking about the animal that died so I could eat this way, or rather, more importantly to me, the way it lived and the way it died. So I shell out the extra money and drive the extra miles and ask the extra questions to eat free range organic meat and line caught fish. I don't think this makes all that much difference, though. If I really stood behind what I 'believed' I'd be devoting myself to this cause and pushing for greater change. Instead I drive past the chicken processing factory every time I drive to the butcher's, knowing full well what is going on in there. And doing too little about it.

Refugees who come to Australia are treated horrendously. Horrendous doesn't even cover it. They are lied to and put out into the desert to live under tents, women and children, for up to a year at a time, in forty degree heat. They are shipped to different countries and made to wait for years sometime, lost in limbo, to find out if they can stay. How can I stand it? And yet I do. I have my excuses. I truly am fully occupied. I truly don't have room for more. And yet I believe we should treat refugees and asylum seekers with welcoming compassion and kindness. I believe animals should live and die bearably, without the extraordinary suffering humans inflict on them out of callousness and a profit motive. But so what?

It's a modern affliction, I think, to imagine that our stances, our gestures, make much difference. Or perhaps it's just another form of religiosity. Like a vegetarian wearing leather . This over-concern with consistency. Who do you think is watching? With the size of the leather industry, do you really think it matters? That sort of interest in an attitude to hypocrisy makes the person the subject of enquiry, rather than their effects on the world. As George Orwell labelled it, it's the politics of gesture. instead of substance. A substantive act would be to lobby and crusade, to attempt to take hold of the levers of the media and political power and create change. But that also seems like a modern affliction, to imagine that one really can. A belief in the power of the individual, despite all evidence to the contrary. This died for me at the last march I ever participated in, when I joined half a million other people in Sydney, and millions worldwide protesting against the invasion of Iraq. It was so patently a bad idea, it was so obvious there were no weapons of mass destruction, and yet the media machine rolled in on in its support of the war machine. Just the other day I read in frank disbelief an article in which Christopher Hitchens, the No.1 star of the politics of gesture, expressed his disappointment at the way the invasion worked out. Seriously? When just in my home city I joined half a million others who knew exactly what was going to happen before it had even begun?

It's a strange kind of narcissism, to imagine that one is really so powerful. That whether or not one wears leather or wrings their hands as they listen to what is happening to refugees on the radio (as I do, routinely) makes any kind of difference at all. And this is why I no longer bother too much about my consistency, and my hypocrisy about such things. It's all an invention, an illusion of political discourse, to make us believe that we have a say in such matters, and that our opinions about such things count.

And yet I know we do count. We count enorrmously. I know I am just as powerful as anyone else alive. But in another sphere entirely. I count, and have power, in my own life. For me that means acting with kindness. Being gentle and generous as often as possible. Treating everyone I come across with respect and dignity. Being thoughtful, and careful. These seem to be the only things that really make a difference, in my life and in the lives of those I see around me, and it's plenty challenging enough. Including others, and being grateful when they include me. This is what I wish for refugees - and what I have tried to be to the refugees who have come to live in our small town. This is what I wish for myself and my son - and what I have experienced in the generosity and love expressed to us by so many of the people we meet.

I think it's really only the qualities I express, the relationships I have, the way I behave each and every moment that has the power to make things better than they are. I'd like to become more courageous, more empowered, more entitled. I'd like to worry less about what other people think. What I buy or wear or say I believe in? Not so much.

The importance of throwing things away

Fri, 8 Apr 2011 02:04:05 -0400

I feel hot and bothered just looking at the titles of most people's responses to this topic. It's all about each person's special reasons for hanging on to old things. They're not just things, of course, they have special memories and meanings attached.

Well, I am all for throwing stuff away. Most especially I'm for throwing away the stuff that has special memories and special meanings. I want my house to be a space where things can happen. I want to walk into a room and feel a sense of possibility, and spaciousness. I don't want to be reminded in countless ways of the past.

One of the reasons I feel this way is because of a writer called Erich Fromm, who wrote a book called 'To Have or To Be'. Reading this book at the age of nineteen has had a lifelong effect on me. In the book he says there are two essential ways of being - having or being. Our society encourages 'having'. We are encouraged to take a lot of photos when we are experiencing something important, like a wedding or a trip, so we can 'have' the experience, for later. We're encouraged to take a lot of notes when we're learning, so we can 'have' that information for easy reference. We're encouraged to buy a lot of stuff and take it home to have it. Even in our relationships, it's thought desirable to 'have' a lot of friends, or a lot of sex for example.

Fromm proposes something radically different, which I have been following, partly due to natural inclination and temperament, but no doubt partly because of his work, for my adult life. I rarely take photos when I'm travelling - I prefer to immerse myself in the moment, instead. I don't keep momentos or even gifts I can't use immediately. I am a big giver awayerer. Ask me if you can borrow a book and I'll give it to you. I have just one handbag, one watch. I aspire to the kind of list of possessions pioneers in nineteenth century novels used to have: two day dresses and a good one for sundays. Two pairs of shoes. I don't, of course. I have way too many dresses and way too many shoes, but I see the beauty in having a small and replaceable pile of stuff.

Fromm's idea is that by not having, you create more space for real being. In learning for example - by not taking notes you require your brain to prrocess the information you're taking in, then and there. You're making yourself be alive and responsive in that moment, instead of a curator, busy accumulating notes or photos or momentoes for looking at later. How much are you really experiencing something if you're seeing it behind a camera?

It's hard to accept that time is passing, that we will never have this moment again, and that our days are numbered. It's the same with relationships, and our childhoods. It's hard to accept that something is over. And yet by requiring ourselves to do this, moment by moment, day by day, I think I am more responsive and creative in this moment. I like to constantly create the possibility for something new.

Throwing stuff away, even precious, valuable stuff, can be lightening and liberating. I'm finishing a novel at the moment, and as I peel away the paragraphs and the words I am finding it's becoming a more living thing, more muscular and powerful as it becomes sparer. It's more spacious, with room for more meaning in the gaps between ideas that have been created by me peeling the words away.

Applying Fromm's principle by changing the verb you use from a having one to a being one, creates changes. Instead of having a lot of friends, you can be really friendly. Instead of having a lot of sex, you can make a lot of love. Instead of having a lot things or information, you can know a lot of stuff. I listen to myself sometimes, and by changing the verb I feel a lot more alive, instantly.

Oscar's Biggest Losers

Mon, 28 Feb 2011 21:02:01 -0500

compare Margot Fonteyn's projection of effortless grace ....

On learning who won Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor at last night's Academy Awards Ceremony, I couldn't help but notice: both Christian Bale and Natalie Portman's Oscar winning roles required them to lose a lot of weight. And this isn't the first time these two factors have coincided, which in itself must be statistically significant when you think about the number of people dreaming of winning an Oscar in their lifetime, let alone the number of people trying to lose weight. And this is not the first time physical transformation and winning an Oscar have coincided. Tom Hanks, Hilary Swank, Daniel Day Lewis, for starters.

Please note: I am talking about a correlation, rather than a judgement on artistic performance. But that's the thing. Acting is so hard to judge. All art is. What is my Oscar deserving performance by Haillee Steinfeld in True Grit might be your Nicole Kidman's performance in The Hours (prosthetic nose + Oscar).

And when you talk about an actor for more than a minute with anyone else on the planet it doesn't take long to realise there are differences of opinion all round. Angelina Jolie anyone? Some critics call her wooden. I spend the first few minutes of any film she's in awestruck by her beauty. And then quickly become so bored that by the end of the movie I don't care about whether she can act. I just want to move on with my life. Clint Eastwood however, one of my all time Hollywood heroes, not only thinks she can act, he's on the record saying she's the greatest actress of her generation. How anyone could say this with Cate Blanchett alive on the planet is beyond me.

Considering the essentially subjective nature of all art, and the divisive nature of what we consider to be good acting, what is a member of the Academy to do?

I think they don't even bother trying to work out who is best. By the time you get to the nominations they're all pretty great, right? So, then how are they to judge who should win? And my answer is, they try to vote for who they think pulled off the biggest coup. And to them that means who did the thing that seemed the hardest.

... to Natalie Portman's portrayal of grim determination

Is this 'A awarded for effort' particularly American? Margot Fonteyn, the greatest ballerina ever (in her case I'm not even going to pretend this is subjective. This is a fact) said in her autobiography that while in England she was revered for the grace and ease of her dancing, in Italy she fell flat. Someone finally came out and told her - those trademark thirtytwo fouettes that she pulled off at the end of Swan Lake? (note: a fouette is like a pirouette except the dancer doesn't put her foot down at the end of a rotation. Instead she kicks it out at a right angle to spin herself round again. To do thirtytwo of them means she's just spun herself around thirtytwo times on the toe of one foot.) She made it look too easy!

Maria Callas, the opera singer, was much more to Italy's, and America's, liking. She sang like an angel. But she also worked like an ox. Corrrection: all great artists work like oxen. Not all of them show it. Maria Callas showed it. She suffered, and she showed her suffering. Margot Fonteyn suffered mightily, in her personal life as well as for her art, but in her typical English manner she never let it show. (think: Colin Firth winning the Best Actor Oscar last night.)

It's hard to judge when it comes to art, yet events like the Academy Awards, or the Pulitzer Prize for literature, are all about judgement. It's inevitable other agendas will come in to play. 'Serious' topics always win compared to the lightsome ones. (That's why it took Sandra Bullock, a great comic actor, playing a straight part in an uplifting film to get the credit she deserved for all those funny ones.) Beautiful actresses always have more of a chance than more homely ones. And that's why my advice to any performer hoping to get the praise they think they deserve in America is this (are you listening,Cate?): don't let it look too easy.