A Life on Track?

Paris Jackson at the Melbourne Cup 2017

I read the supplement magazine 'Stellar' (Star?) that comes in 'The Sunday Mail' newspaper on November 5th this year, which featured Paris Jackson on the cover and inside with a feature story about her coming out to attend the Melbourne Cup horse race the following Tuesday (November 7th).

The article about Paris Jackson ends with these words -
"She is still in her teens, but Jackson's life has been full of emotional upheaval.

It seems to have made her thoughtful, wise beyond her years and concerned about everything from the health of the Great Barrier Reef to the political climate in the US.

"I've been trying to have a more optimistic outlook on our country's current situation, and it's also not really productive to be doing what I am doing in the activism world if I'm being ruled by fear, anger or resentment,"she says.

"It's about being ruled by love and being love." " 

I also thought it was ironic that on page 28 of the same magazine was a page about Paris, the city of love and Paris Fashion Week.

Ironically, the same Australian press would tear Paris apart after the cup for not playing ball with them on Cup Day.

But the real story in this magazine that got my attention was about a lady who I admire (not that I don't also admire Paris Jackson) and have meet before in real life named Robyn Davidson.
Crossing Paths With the "Camel Lady" at the BBWF

The article in the magazine was about her 40th anniversary of Robyn's journey across the Australian Outback, which she wrote about in her book 'Tracks' and which was also made into a motion picture recently.

"In 1977, Robyn Davidson travels from Alice Springs across 2,700 kilometers (1,700 miles) of Australian deserts to the Indian Ocean with her dog and four camels.

National Geographic photographer Rick Smolan documents her journey."

In the magazine article Robyn recounts her life since that journey across the desert in 1977 and talks about writing her current book which deals with her mother's suicide and just how hard writing it is.

Robyn also tells of her life as a bit of a loner, but someone who treasures their solitude, too.
Robyn sounds like a kindred spirit to me, because I'm the same when it comes to wanting solitude and my experience of relationships is much like her own, which reminds me of a saying by someone else who was named Robin;-)

I've always wanted to cross the Outback, but not on foot, or by car, but by train.

It doesn't follow the route Robyn took in 1977, but it does give you an idea of what that crossing would have been like in terms of conditions and vast distance, although from an air-conditioned comfy window seat perspective.

THE INDIAN PACIFIC

Ironically, as I'm reading Robyn's magazine article and dreaming about a four-day train journey across the desert, I see that there is a story in the same magazine about the new movie 'Murder on the Orient Express'.

I had never seen the original movie, nor read the book, so I didn't know who had done it, or probably more to the point, who hadn't done it?-)
So, I made a note to go and see this new version at the cinema, which I eventually did.

Ironically, I saw the movie in a suburb of Brisbane that is like a little Chinatown and has a large Oriental population.
I had gone over to Sunnybank to do some shopping and try to pick up a new 2018 Chinese calendar for my kitchen wall, so I would be ready when New Year's Day came next year, as that's where I usually buy them around about this time of year, but there were none in stock yet.
While I was over at Sunnybank I decided to see the movie only to realize later how ironic seeing that movie in an Oriental populated suburb.

Sunnybank, Brisbane, Australia

At the end of the week after reading that Stellar magazine from November 5th I couldn't help wondering if my life was still on track, too.

But I guess it's all written in the stars anyway, so it's not like my life can really derail now, is it?-)

UPDATE: 20th November, 2017

On the subject of murder and Sunnybank, on Saturday the 18th November, 2017 a guy attempted to murder a random person standing on the corner opposite the Sunnybank Plazza where I saw 'Murder on the Orient Express'.

Teen on his way to Schoolies stabbed in neck in allegedly random, unprovoked attack

The other weird thing was that I was at Sunnybank Plazza on Saturday putting on my lotto numbers and seeing if the Chinese wall calendars had come in yet.

I was there after the stabbing had occurred, but didn't learn about the horrific attack until that night when I saw the story on the news.

And the only luck I ended up having with buying my lotto ticket was that I didn't go there earlier in the day and run into a knife wielding nut-bag:-)