Cairns

The international wedding – from New York to Cairns and back again

AnneLeave a comment
Sign - Chelsea & Sean, June 16 2018
Chelsea & Sean, June 16 2018

I love attending a wedding, as I wrote in Wedding Rings and Canoe Paddles. As a psychologist, my days are often filled with the sadness and problems of life so it’s joyous to take time out to witness the joining of families, friends, communities, and in this case countries. There seems to be so little opportunity to come together with old friends and family, separated as we often are by geography and busyness. A wedding is a wonderful chance to pause and celebrate the expression of love, to honour a shared history, to laugh, to cry and to reflect on the odd things that happen.  This international wedding was no exception.

The Bride and Groom, Chelsea and Sean, live in New York, the bridesmaids in Brisbane, New York, Dubai and Cairns, the groomsmen in New York and Dubai, the Mother of the Groom in Florida the Mother of the Bride in Los Angeles and the Father of the Bride in Cairns. The guests were predominantly from Australia and the USA. That’s a lot of coming together. We attended the Cairns wedding and there was a second wedding in New York.

This is a couple who don’t live where either of them grew up, where either of them went to university, where either of them started work or near any family.  They have worked hard to form and maintain friendships and family relationships across the world.  This wedding celebrated and strengthened these connections.

So what traditions did this international couple keep, or make their own? Continue reading →

Weekend Warriors

Steve1 Comment

Have you every had something that you were good at and really loved, but for different reasons you lost it…or gave it away? I have.

Saxing it up
Saxing it up

That something for me was music. When I was about 14 years old I was an accomplished musician for my age, playing trumpet, saxophone, clarinet, euphonium, a little bit of piano and the electronic organ. Those talents saw me playing most weekends in an old time ballroom dance band – Ron Campbell’s Orchestra, “The Pride of the South Coast”. All was fabulous for a few years, and then I found girls. The pressure for a young adolescent boy of competing priorities got a little too much, and ultimately, I chose girls and lost the music. That loss lasted almost 15 years. When I met Anne she had no idea of my musical aptitude – all she knew was that some odd looking cases took up a whole lot of room in my wardrobe. Those cases contained my sax and trumpet. I knew I would make music again, and in the early 1990’s I did. As a family, in 1990 we moved to Papua New Continue reading →