An anticipated return

There’s something calming about scotch before a flight. After the stress of fighting through crowds to the airport, navigating numerous check-in gates and surviving airport security interrogations, a small sip can be just the thing to bring your heart rate back to its comfort zone. I’m a hopeless traveler without one.

I have one now so all is good. And to be honest, apart from a suspended Tube line, the process of getting to the flight lounge has been unusually relaxed. So much so that a couple of security personnel at the screening zone were making out. I repeat, making out. Clearly they knew something about the working status of the security cameras the rest of us did not.

But anyway, I digress. I’m here waiting for my flight to New York (airports are proving a wonderful place for navel gazing and blog writing). It’s an eagerly awaited trip, although once again I don’t feel at all prepared which is becoming somewhat of a trend now that I don’t have to plan travel years in advance. I left New York eight months ago feeling like I‘d just said goodbye to a holiday romance; all late nights and good times with none of the revealing morning breath. This will be the trip that either confirms the city’s magical quality or reveals it to be an animatronic fraud, much like when I first returned to Disneyland as an adult. (To be fair, it was EuroDisney.)

New York City is a place like no other. That most of us can agree. For me it holds a powerful allure. My first encounter with New York was fresh off a 45-hour trek, heavily jetlagged and severely emotionally drained following a series of raw farewells in Australia. I was ready to collapse. I was ready to retreat. I was ready to hate being anywhere but home.

But how can you hate New York? On that first day I remember being recharged by the frantic neon of Times Square. Finding peace in the sanctuary of Central Park. Feeling like it should be home as I walked the streets of Greenwich Village.

In short, I knew in a few hours what took several months to discover about London – it’s for me.

New York is a city of sights and sounds. But the thing that took me completely by surprise was that it can also be still, when it wants to be. Away from the pace of Midtown, the streets can be calm and inviting. The small lanes tangled in the Village were tree-lined and immaculately kept. I was prepared for Manhattan to be anything but ordered. The revelation left me feeling that in New York, you can have your cake and eat it too.

I’ll be interested to see if the memory holds up. I’m quietly confident it will. And this time I won’t be carting my entire life, dispersed across three flimsy suitcases. I won’t be dragging the weight of starting a new life. I won’t be spreading costs across several Australian credit cards. This time I’m going to take New York out on a fancy date.

Yes, New York and I are going to pick up right where we left it. Hot and heavy.

Ticked off

Sitting on this rickety little plane on route to the Isle of Man makes me realise that I’ve been exposed to a whole lot of new since moving to London.

I’m on my way to deliver a workshop on how to write effective messages. It’s bizarre that a year ago I didn’t even know that the Isle of Man existed, let alone think I could be suitably qualified to deliver a lecture there on the do’s and don’ts of corporate writing.

But here I am, jammed into a tiny plane, on my way to said island to impart some wisdom.

Yesterday I gave the same presentation in Jersey, one of the Channel Islands. I can now say I’ve been to two of these Channel Islands and while I have no compelling desire to complete the set, I am enjoying the chance to visit new places. Dull as they may be.

Jersey isn’t the most exciting place in the world. And from all reports Isle of Man is no tourist mecca either.* Following my presentation in Jersey I was able to duck out of the office to see the local highlights. After a lap of the CBD (a street) I decided the time would be better spent getting a long-overdue haircut. (Someone in the office had remarked, “Mr Butterley! You’re hair is doing funky things!” It wasn’t a compliment.)

So I booked myself in for a cut with a girl whose previous appointment had been her Barbie doll - and paid an outrageous amount more than I would have in London for the pleasure. (On a side note, I may not be a qualified hairdresser but I do know it’s best to wash gel out of hair before attempting to cut it. I also know that ear cartilage is NOT designed to be twisted 180 degrees, no matter how finely you want to trim a hairline). No, I wasn’t enamoured with Jersey.

But I’ve been. Tick.

I’ve had quite a few ‘ticks’ since I left Australia. A year ago I was dreaming of finally making it to New York. This time in two weeks I will have been twice in nine months. Considering it took me 28 years to get there the first time, it goes to show that you really have to be unconscious or some manner of agoraphobe not to have some unique experiences when you’re on the same side of the world as practically everything.

I’ve been to great West End shows, attended film premieres, become dwarfed by massive nightclubs and been accused of alcoholism by overzealous health authorities. Just last week I went with a group (including my stepbrother Tim who is on his own European journey) to an underground restaurant - a restaurant which ‘pops up’ in some unconventional space like a lounge room or industrial kitchen. It was awesome. The food was outstanding, the company grand and I survived the night without having any major organs harvested. Definitely worth the risk. (Although given it was a B.Y.O. event I did pay for it the next morning – possibly supporting the NHS’ assessment of my drinking habits. Tim and I were due for a day of sightseeing but decided to call it quits after an hour of modern art at Tate sent us both a little psychedelic.)

I think what I’m slowly getting at – both in this entry and life in general – is that I’m lucky to be here. On the rare occasions that I do forget about Tube congestion or the cold or the credit card bills and take a look at all the cool stuff I’m doing, I wonder if I could ever get sick of being in the heart of such activity.

Although, sitting here on this vibrating model plane with rather jagged-looking cliffs below, I realise there are times when unconsciousness does seem a mightily appealing option.


*Having now returned (safely) I can report that there really is little to see on the Isle of Man (or at least in the capital Douglas). Other than the crescent bay and perhaps the Home of Rest for Old Horses, which I half expected would be some quirky slaughterhouse. It was, in fact, a retirement village for horses.

But the people were lovely and quintessentially eccentric. The ground crew at the airport sported decidedly oversized leprechaun hats to mark St Patrick’s Day. The taxi drivers doubled as tour guides, pointing out such local gems as the Air Force Ejection Seat factory.

And I’m in love with the sweet lady at the airport check-in counter. “Oh my dear, you’ve come to the wrong airline. Make your way over there.” She then stood up, pushed her chair along to the competing airline’s desk and proceeded to check me in. Gold.

I resigned today

From my Australian job that is.

Terrified that I might fall foul of the Global Financial Crisis and be forced to return prematurely to Melbourne broke and dejected, I requested a career break from ANZ. Kindly they came to the party, which has been a fantastic security blanket while re-establishing myself.

Now, four months before I’m due back behind the desk, I’ve hit that point where I need to make a decision. I loathe decisions.

I do know that I’m nowhere near ready to go back: I have more to see. The sun is being all flirtatious. I can’t afford the airfare.

I need more time. A lot more. But unfortunately that doesn’t work for work, which is fair enough. While it’s really no big deal – I have another job and I am on the other side of the world after all – it’s one of those moments that forces you to stop and finally give some airtime to those little voices. Do I want to stay? Do I even like it here? Am I willing to give up a good thing back home?

The answer is undoubtedly ‘yes’ to all. For now. So safe in that knowledge, I feel comfortable in cutting the safety chord and watching it snap all the way back to Australia.

It’s a good feeling, and another reminder that I’ve survived. Which is all I really hoped for this trip. It also means I’ll be home when I’m good and ready.

But I will miss the Z.

I’m totally at peace with it

I’m totally not.

In four months, I’ll be 30. I’ve used so much headspace planning dinners, parties and Spanish villas that I’ve been distracted from the real reason I’ll be ‘celebrating’ in late June. I’m about to enter my fourth decade.

I spent the weekend with a friend from Australia – someone nearly four years my junior, who had tactfully told me on my 28th birthday that I had great skin for someone my age. This weekend he turned 26 and lamented about how quickly old age had arrived. When I heard myself reeling off that whole ‘you’re so not old’ lecture I’ve had so many times before from those approaching 40, I realised 'crap, I’m finally there'. At last the realities of my own impending birthday were sharply in focus.

I am getting old…er. But that doesn’t bother me. So much. I’m not showing too many signs of aging - not visible ones anyway. I’m still confused for mid-20s and apparently for my age I do have great skin. Although I am finding I run into walls a lot more recently.

No, it’s not an age thing that’s got my mind stewing. It’s that old achievement chestnut. I mean, I have done a lot in a (relatively) short time, but I’m nearly 30 and I don’t have the clarity I expected to have at this point. Now that I’m over here in London and I’m slowly starting to figure out what I want to achieve, I’m kicking myself that I didn’t work it all out 10 years earlier.

At younger ages I knew exactly what I wanted in life. At 8, I wanted to be a priest (read into that what you will!). At 12, I fully expected to become the youngest actor to win an Academy Award (how I cursed Anna Pacquin when she stole my thunder*). And at 18, I was studying theatre at university, on my way to the big time.

By 20 I had lost all sense of direction, and ten years later I’m yet to truly get it back. As I entered adulthood and began working all day only to hemorrhage my wage on rent and credit cards, I become somewhat trapped in a corporate routine that I never quite saw myself in. I lost that clear picture of what I wanted, or what I could be.

I still think to myself I’ll be an actor when I grow up. Or I’ll give writing a go in the next few years. But it’s getting to a point where I should really wake up to the fact that I am grown up now and I should stop thinking of myself as that 18 year old, expecting that everything will one day be conveniently delivered in a sealed envelope.

The thing that I think really gets me as I race towards 30, is that I haven’t tried. Not really. I haven’t really taken the risks to be that actor, or write that book. Or even stopped to have a good think if either of those are what I actually want in life. To be fair, taking myself out of my routine and planting myself on the other side of the world has done wonders for renewing my sense of direction. And while I’m still not 100% sure what I want, it’s becoming increasingly clear what I don’t – and that in itself is a long overdue start.

It just sucks that I’m only working this out as I say ‘farewell twenties – but are you sure you can’t hang around for one more drink?’ At least the puzzle is starting to reveal itself. The challenge will be to make my 30’s count. I don’t think my skin can hold on till 40.

And in the meantime, I plan to celebrate hard – lest I remember again I’m just a fraction younger than 30.


* Further research has revealed that an eight-year-old Tatum O'Neal was, in fact, the youngest Academy Award winner, being awarded in 1973 for her performance in Paper Moon. In my defense, as a 12 year old, I had no idea the Seventies even existed.