So here, somewhat shamefully, is my first post for 2015 - almost a year since my last! The reason for my apparent hiatus? A late discovery of Game of Thrones has certainly played a part...but a far less debauched reason is that time has simply got away from me. And it would be a shame to waste all of 2015 in front of the idiot box. What's special about this year?
80s film nerds would note it's the year Doc and Marty McFly travel to first in their DeLorean. It's also the International Year of Light, a UN-endorsed initiative that celebrates light and its myriad applications.
And it's the year I make my first, long-awaited trip to the home of cannoli, Caravaggio and cosa nostra - Italy. Growing up in Adelaide's own little Italy, I often felt there was more bolognese than Bollywood flowing through my veins. I formally studied the language and culture through high school and uni, yet since then have only practised the lingo with insouciant Italian wait staff and nursing home nonnas. Finally, in 2015, I can embarrass myself some 16,000 kms from home!
It's also the year I travel back in time to 1990, as my primary school exhumes its inaugural time capsule. 1990: Vogue was #1, California pants were billowing; what pearls of wisdom did my 9-year old self drop into this crypt of ingenuity?
I wonder if I had even the slightest idea of who I would be today. I don't remember what I contributed to the capsule; I remember the paper I scribbled on but not the scribble itself. I vividly recall, though, looking 25 years ahead and imagining me as a 34-year old next to the unearthed capsule, blonde wife by my side and two (remarkably white) children in tow.
Back to the present: I have no wife or ill-gotten children. And to gain a husband I'd have to overcome a couple of significant obstacles: one - finding a man to marry, and two - an Australia that's needlessly clinging to its past.
In a nod to refracted light, the Irish Catholics have just embraced a rainbow-coloured future. Surely, in 2015, Australia can crawl out of its time capsule, rub its bleary eyes and see the light of today.
