…and best wishes for a rockin’ year to all. I’ve been quiet for a good few weeks now and it’s well past high time I got back online and on with the proverbial programme. I spent most of festive season roughing it Bear Grylls style slap, bang in the middle of nowhere far up on the west coast. Which was fun (back to basics, upfront and rather personal with good ol’ Mother Nature) until about Day 12 when my bladder began experimenting with chronic DT’s, having clearly missed the marvels of modern plumbing. After 6 hours on the road, a long hot shower and 1x happy dance around the loo, I began packing because, oh yes: I’m moving. AGAIN. Now while there’re certainly better ways of starting a year, if I’d been forced to face those boxes at the end of the last one, I’d probably have had quick nervous breakdown and holidayed myself silly in Valkenberg instead. So, while I may have kicked things off in less than thrilling style, back at the packing wall and all, at least I’ve had enough R&R to ward off an imminent loss of sanity.

time to shine!

As of now, I’ve effectively moved out and am busy settling in (elsewhere), an extreme sport in it’s own right. I’m getting by on massive doses of Modern Family (thank you, Amy!) and a motherload moody music. Which is what today’s post – 2012’s first -  is mostly about. But we’ll get to that. First, we have a little, erhm, ‘house’ keeping score to settle…

Last year was, pretty much, freaking awful. So much so that by the time December 31st rolled round I was talking about being glad 2010 (or worse: 2001) was over. Proof the year (and yeah, probably the whole decade that went with it) was better off being written off and conveniently repressed. But: and here’s the big B-U-T, I’m (finally) ready to let go and move the hell on. Packing might just have taught me something, courtesy of box #21 which begged the question:

Why the f*ck am I dragging this all sh*t around with me?

Yeah, I like some of it. I’m a nostalgic romantic that way. Other bits have served me well from a practical perspective but none of it I need to be happy. And this bleeding cycle of box-in and box-out is so damn exhausting I can’t begin to see how it serves me to hold on to anything anymore. More than enough of my limited (and thus -  precious) energy has already been expended dragging this nonsense around Cape Town and her peninsular. Last week saw me sorely tempted to torch the lot, hop on a plane and start a new life as a gypsy (or something). Sadly, an epic drug regime held me check so I settled for the next best thing: a spot of symbolic dumping.

bye-bye baggage...

2011: all the bullsh*t and bloodshed, the heartache and hysteria – I’m leaving you behind. To any likewise horrible periods past and their particularly peculiar pricks  – thanks for the all the fish, I’m done.

2012: for me at least, is about moving forward. And moving on. Unencumbered and free. Last year rammed home the need for breaking (from) bad and finding freedom. This year is about allowing the present to be perceived without the foggy lens of a brutal past distorting my reality. It’s done. I want to create a future that’s way different from what went before and the only way I can see my way clear to doing that is to begin by looking in the right direction… straight ahead.

the littlest birds sing the prettiest songs...

In celebration of cleaning house and moving (out, in and on) here’s the tune spinning my new year decks by sultry singer-songwriter Sarah Blasko off the aptly entitled album As Day Follows Night (winning her an ARIA  award for Best Female Artist in 2009).

She packs a sexy, outta-breath voice (think Imogen Heap’s haunting Hide and Seek – yeah still need to introduce you to her) like a match setting fire to the poetry of her lyrically lovely lyrics. And she’s got truckloads of charm besides – enough to make up for the entire continent of brash, brusque Australians (forgive the cultural jibe, just a little Springbok-Wallaby antagonism at play in the loose maul). Ms Blasko’s a singer women like to listen to and men like to look at: something to keep everyone happy. The video’s kinda a New York city-esque La Belle et la Bête meets Where the Wild Things Are… the whimsy of dreams, night time and woodland alpha-male, bow and arrow in hand. Hmmmmm….

… hurt like a bird on a wire you got cursed * you got burned, something that no one deserves…

Enjoy!