23 Jewels of 2023
Big things and small things. Each of them: sparkling.
Emerging from a perfectly lazy, languid (and COVID-ridden) break to say Happy New Year.
I always feel a bit swirly and funny on the cusp of a new year. Any excuse to extract meaning, reflect, overthink. This morning, I started writing a list of 23 special things from 2023 (23 is my favourite number) and thought I’d publish the result here. It is a long post, so if you’re reading this as an email, it will cut off at some point. Just click "View entire message" and you'll be able to see it all.
13 May 2023. My wedding day, just ten days shy of our eight year anniversary, ten months after getting engaged at the top of the Eiffel Tower. Planned in just six weeks. We got married in the rose garden at Parramatta Park, the people we love most in the world gathered under a big tree ablaze with autumn. I still can’t quite believe it happened. The day replays itself to me in snippets: the speeches, my grandparents signing our marriage certificate, the vows, the readings, the most incredible cake one of my bridesmaids made for us, Maggie bounding up the aisle on her two back legs, an epic champagne spray, growling thunder, the rain holding off. It really was the perfect day.
Our honeymoon: Four weeks travelling through Croatia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, Hungary, Austria, Slovakia, Germany, and Italy. We swam in the Adriatic Sea, whiled away hours at Budapest’s thermal baths, marvelled at the magnificent castle balanced atop a mountain in Germany, and strolled around misty Salzburg.
Most viscerally, there was the full body shock of diving into the iciest water I’ve felt, and swimming right up to Kravica Falls. I didn’t want to do it. But once I was underneath the falls, head tilted back to gaze up at them, I couldn’t believe I almost didn’t jump in. There’s a lesson in there.
Kravica Falls Our trip ended in Tuscany, to celebrate two dear friends’ wedding. Eating, drinking, dancing, sweating, hugging, crying happy tears. Catching every drop of orange Tuscan sunsets, in an ivy-coated house on the hill, the countryside rolling on and on forever. A month and a bit later, we watched friends tie the knot looking out over the ocean in Bali. Another pair of loved ones married at a grand Sikh temple as part of a fun and joyful week of celebrations. It was a year of witnessing our friends’ special days and feeling very warm and fuzzy about it.
Our first niece was born in February. I remember holding her for the first time and thinking: look at this precious, miraculous, tiny creature. I hold her now, almost 11 months old, and think the same. I can’t imagine what she’ll be like at two, five, nine, fourteen, twenty. I can’t wait to find out (but I will wait; grow slowly, please).
Long, long baths. Laying in warm water, reading until I’ve lost track of time, fingertips pruned. Especially on Sundays.
After 13 years of writing ‘get my Ps’ as a lofty, impossible-to-achieve resolution, I did it. I have driven to the supermarket to do our big Christmas shop, I have driven up the highway to visit my niece. I have my licence. It is one of my biggest achievements.
Another year with our Maggie. She is sometimes naughty and regularly frustrating, but overall she is the most cuddly, hilarious, and affectionate little dog. She bounds up the stairs to bed each night, determined to get there first. I wrap her in a blanket, so just her tiny head emerges. She tolerates it. She lays on the shelf under the coffee table, stretched out in the hiding spot she first found comfort in as a puppy. She lays on my belly, on my chest, on my lap - legs stretched out, or curled up like a croissant, or one paw extended to rest on my arm. How is it fair that we will likely outlive our dogs, these creatures who bring us such profound connection, such meaningful company, such joy? I love her.
Look at this face! Discovering Chappell Roan. Singing the anthemic Pink Pony Club at the top of my lungs.
The cottage in my neighbourhood covered in pale pink roses. Whenever I pass it, these roses make me feel such admiration and happiness. How much care goes into keeping them alive? Did the owners inherit them, and dedicate themselves to their upkeep? Or did they plant them, have they watched them grow from nothing into this shock of petals?
I searched the address on a real estate app recently. It was sold a few years ago. The newest photos were taken to prepare it for sale. Not a single rose in sight. It’s amazing, the difference some time and tending can make.
Vanderpump Rules season 10 - what did we do to deserve such perfect television?
Our Christmas tree. We collect ornaments from places we go and looking at them across the past month or so, illuminated by twinkling lights, has felt particularly special at the end of this difficult/beautiful, fast/long year.
A road trip with close friends to Bathurst, Mudgee, and Orange at the end of November. We hopped from winery to winery, picked cherries, explored a cave, stayed in a tiny house on an alpaca farm, soaked in a hot tub, enjoyed long lunches, and played board games.
Starting this newsletter, which has sparked a weekly writing practice.
My other published writing, on: getting my licence, how to properly rest (which also appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald print edition), and being dunked into career uncertainty.
The Laneige Lip Sleeping Mask, kept on my bedside table. I put it on right before I go to sleep every single night, and look forward to the moment I get to scoop up a little dollop from the pot, and slather it on with the pad of my finger.
One week spent lazing, reading, swimming, and resetting in Bali. Genuine bliss.
Slowly driving past a field of sunflowers in Tuscany, and winding the window down so there was nothing between me and their overwhelming brightness.
The 11 shows I saw, including 4 excellent concerts - Harry Styles, Carly Rae Jepsen, Paul McCartney, and Sam Smith - and 7 plays or musicals: Amadeus at the Opera House, The Mousetrap at Riverside Theatre, Into the Woods at Belvoir, The Dictionary of Lost Words at the Opera House, and three while travelling in London: A Strange Loop at the Barbican, Mrs Doubtfire at the Shaftesbury Theatre, and A Little Life at the Savoy Theatre.
Books.
Especially these ones, which brought me such comfort, escape, contentment, and company this year. Two late additions that I read since publishing my favourites list: Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, and The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez. Both remarkable.This year, we also installed new bookshelves, after two years of problem-solving a small nook and many years of longing to live in a home where books stretch to the ceiling. We’re not quite scraping the roof, but close enough.
Finally, on books: In July, I attended a writing workshop. Off the back of it, we formed a book club, and it has been such a source of community and support (hello
, , , , and ).Our second annual trip to Adelaide, starring AFL games, a trip to Victor Harbour and Granite Island, and wine tastings in McLaren Vale.
Finding the perfect bath oils (scents, potency, price) after years spent mourning the loss of my former-favourites (discontinued) and eking out my last few bottles. I take a bath almost every day. The bathtub is one of my favourite places in the whole world. These bath oils are important to me.
Watching the Up documentary series, which I wrote about here. I didn’t expect to feel so emotionally attached to the participants, hyper-aware of my own mortality, and reflective about the questions it asks and returns to: What is success? Do I want marriage? Children? How do I cope with mental illness, or a relationship breakdown, or a job loss? How much money do I want? What’s important and enduring to me? Do I have regrets? What makes a good life?
Just this week, during the blurry and time-bending time between Christmas and New Year’s: A couple of nights in a little, secluded cabin. Big trees, big skies, bright stars, immense indigo nights, watercolour sunrises, peaceful hours in a hammock.
On the first evening while I was in the shower, hair sudsy and dripping, a small window framed the sunset; sienna sun bleeding out between the eucalypts. I didn’t have my glasses on, of course, so it was all blurry, abstract smudges of colour.
Later that night, Maggie was suddenly startled, growling, approaching the window, letting out a few barks. The blind was mostly lowered, so I pulled it up and there, eye to eye with her, was a large kangaroo, standing upright and still. It was just a few metres away, but no sooner had we glimpsed it and it bounded off. I could convince myself I imagined that moment, dream-like.
The next morning, I laid in the hammock strung between two scraggly trees, reading the last hundred pages of the spectacular Demon Copperhead. My phone was flung somewhere within the cocoon of fabric, underneath a leg or near a foot. I didn’t feel the buzzes. Checked it a minute or two later to see messages from Rob saying that at least 50 kangaroos were bounding past me. I’d missed it. But I looked up and out, and there they were, separated into two clusters in the shade. I turned so I could sit cross-legged in the hammock, facing them. I kept reading. Watched them graze and gaze right back at me.
What a way to end the year.
I might pop up again soon with a list of every book I read this year, but for now, I’m slinking back to my cave.
I hope you ring in the new year however feels best: a party/kiss/book/glass of champagne/sleep/fireworks/all or none of the above. Above all, I hope 2024 is good to you.
Until next time,
Britt
This is so beautiful!! I adored this piece. What an amazing and lucky year you’ve had ❤️