Bridget McNulty

I bought a wedding dress…

// May 13th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // Decisions, Durban, Inspiration

… Last weekend. Almost on a whim. In fact, it felt a little like Liz Lemon buying her wedding dress in 30 Rock (see some classic Liz Lemon moments here).

Except I’m actually getting married. Eek! When you have a dress, you know it’s for real.

It was possibly one of the most exciting mornings of my life. No exaggeration.
I spent 5 or 6 days in Durban last week for work (which was, I would like to confess, waaay too busy – turns out photo shoots are a lot more intensive than I imagined). On Saturday morning, my mom and dad and I went to the Musgrave Bridal Centre, where I was confronted with what felt like hundreds of wedding gowns, all glittering and shining and begging for attention. I wasn’t interested in any of the dresses that you could get made to your size (imagine seeing someone else wearing your wedding dress! My worst nightmare. I get upset if I see someone else wearing the same everyday dress as me).

But then there was the Magical Rack of Once-Offs. Sent from America, one-of-a-kind, all in my size. Yup, that’s me, the luckiest girl in the world.

I tried on four, and fell in love with one. In love. As in, it is the most beautiful dress I have ever seen. Fits me like it was made for me, a vintage feel, gorgeous fabric, and a long train. Amazing! I also got a traditional veil. And heart palpitations every time I think about it – I am so excited!

The pic above is from my drive to the new airport in Durban… Early morning, sugarcane fields, golden light. That’s why I love Durban. Well, one of the reasons…

PS: Don’t even ask, cause I’m not showing ANYONE my dress till the big day!

I’m on a search…

// April 3rd, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Blogs, Strange Nervous Laughter

… for evocative photos of Durban.

Have you got any? If so, hop on over to my new Flickr site (oh yes! I have one of these now! I am so fancy!) and gimme! http://www.flickr.com/photos/bridgetmcnulty/

I’m trying to create a set of photos that illustrates, in some way, what Durban is actually like. Mainly for my US readers (of Strange Nervous Laughter) so that they’ll know what the town looks like, but also for all those with a fondness for good ol’ Durbs…

Update: I now have a Strange Nervous Laughter group on Flickr, so you can just pop them straight in there – http://www.flickr.com/groups/1028976@N25/

Thanks!!

What can you do?

// March 10th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Cape Town, Durban, Life (and the living of it)

Sometimes things just don’t work out in your favour… like my mom and me skydiving.

We were booked to go on Thursday morning, but when we woke up it was cloudy and raining and we had to reschedule… The next few days were similar weather, so we booked again for Monday lunchtime. Monday dawned bright and clear in Durban, but not in Pietermaritzburg, 45 minutes away, where the skydiving was.

We waited in hopeful anticipation all afternoon, but alas! No break in the weather. And this morning I flew back to Cape Town. How disappointing!

The thing is, sometimes things just don’t work out the way you want them to. And you can whine and complain and bash fists against foreheads (if that’s your vibe) but it won’t change anything. Maybe it just wasn’t meant to happen now – for any number of reasons.

Acceptance is sometimes a bitter pill to swallow, no?

So Durban was lovely, as always, although much of it was spent in hospital with my dad, poor guy, who had a horrible back operation and is slowly recovering… I really do have the most extraordinary family, you only really notice when things are difficult, hey?

And now I’m back in Cape Town, with my lovely man. I think I need some kind time for myself, and I know I need to put my head down and get some work done! I’ll be back blogging soon, though, never fear…

In the mood for a holiday?

// March 3rd, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Durban, Life (and the living of it)

I certainly am!
So I’m going on one… but not to some exotic island. Nope, I’m off to Durban, to visit family and friends (but mainly family) and spend some QT with them. My dad had an operation last week, and my brother and sister-in-law and amazingly cute niece are heading back to the Netherlands next week, so it’s time I spent some family time at home.

No complaints here!

Oh, and my mom and I are going SKYDIVING on Thursday, did I mention that? Eeeeek!!!

(not Durban!)

Allow others to be responsible for themselves.

// January 13th, 2009 // 3 Comments » // Decisions, Life (and the living of it)

That was my motto for the holidays, and I’m carrying it into the new year.

I wish I could say I came up with it myself, but I actually stole it from my practical philosophy teacher, and the whole thing was: “Allow others to be responsible for themselves. Forgive yourself and others.”
She gave it to us as a suggestion for peaceful family holiday time. It worked.

I don’t know about you, but I often feel like I have to organise things. Like I have to make sure everyone knows what’s going on and is in the right place at the right time and happy to be there. The problem is, although I used to love organising things (the control freak in me would shiver with glee at any organisational task) I no longer do. I don’t like the weight of responsibility that comes with it, I don’t like encouraging other people to be useless and depend on me to make a plan, and I don’t like the guilt that descends if something goes wrong. Because I had convinced myself that I always had to be responsible for others, though, I never gave them the chance to be responsible for themselves. I thought that if I stopped organising, that if I stepped back and let people screw up by themselves, that’s exactly what they’d do – screw up.

Boy oh boy was I wrong!

I heard this fascinating theory a little while ago that spoke about the necessity for balance in the world – that there always has to be, for example, blue and red in every situation. Say you’re in a meeting and everyone is spewing out red red red, one person has to mention the blue. The problem comes in when it’s the same person over and over again always mentioning the blue. What’s so interesting about this theory, though, is that they did tests to see what would happen if the blue person didn’t say anything, if they went against their urge to be blue (or responsible for others, or bossy, or organisey – fill in the blank). Amazingly, the weight of red was too much and someone else in the meeting had to mention the blue.

It’s a long story for a simple idea – if you step back and allow others to be responsible for themselves, it’s the darnedest thing, but they actually will!

Try it… And let me know how it goes. It worked for me. As soon as I stopped feeling like I had to be responsible for other people, they stepped up and became responsible for themselves.

Durban – the secret city

// August 20th, 2007 // 5 Comments » // Durban, Life (and the living of it), Strange Nervous Laughter

I have an enduring love affair with Durban.
It’s early morning and I’m sitting watching the lights go out as Cape Town wakes up, and I have to admit, I love this city. I love that you can walk around semi-safely, I love that there’s a long promenade next to the sea that I can pop down to during my lunch breaks, I love the bakeries.
But Durban, now there’s a city you can’t get over too easily.

I went home for a weekend a little while ago and it just reignited my passion for it – that maelstrom (is that the word?) of colours and sounds and cultures, that layer of filth that covers everything, that heady scent of tropical on the breeze. Getting a bit too lyrical, you think?
Maybe I love it so much because it’s not an easy city to get. Tourists don’t get it, people who visit for the weekend don’t get it. You have to really live in Durban to understand it. The beauty of a late-afternoon swim at Battery Beach, the overwhelming stench of fish at Victoria Street Market, Little Gujarat treats after walking the city for hours, the exhausting heat, the comfortable familiarity of Musgrave Centre. Yip, I even love Musgrave Centre.
There’s just something about Durban that’s very kind – it’s slower and sweeter than the other cities.

What’s so strange for me now is that I’m reading over excerpts of Strange Nervous Laughter (my book) and it’s such a Durban book, and then I look out the window and I’m in Cape Town, the most un-secret city of them all.
And I love them both, really, but I wonder if you ever get over the city you were born in?

Strange Nervous Laughter

// August 18th, 2007 // 2 Comments » // Durban, Love, Strange Nervous Laughter, Writing

So I finally have a good answer to, “When’s your book coming out?”

“Next year sometime,” is wildly disappointing, “In a couple of months,” kills the conversation. Dead. But “next month,” now that’s a good answer. All of a sudden people are perking their ears up, asking me what the title is again (Strange Nervous Laughter), asking me about the cover (uber-cool), asking me all sorts of questions I don’t know how to answer, but that make me feel like a real Author, which is a delightful feeling.

I get the sense that a lot of people thought I made up the whole book publishing thing, and that now they’re beginning to second-guess their suspicious natures as it looks like it might actually happen. Ha HA! I say.

But only under my breath.

The thing is that I can’t really believe it’s happening either. Every time I walk past an Exclusive Books I try and imagine Strange Nervous Laughter in a little pile on the table, but I can’t. Not yet. (This isn’t strange behaviour, by the way. I have it on good authority that other authors have done this in the months and weeks leading up to their book launch.)

The next question everyone asks is, “So what’s it about?” which, let me tell you, is near impossible to answer. But I’ve formulated a somewhat rambling answer in need of a good edit, and it seems to do the trick.

Ready?

‘It’s set in Durban, and it’s three stories intertwined, each with two main protagonists. It’s kind of about why people act the way they do, which is what I’m fascinated by, and about love [this makes people look at me like I've written a Mills and Boon, so I have to quickly say] but it’s not a romance. It’s about what love makes us do, being in love or out of love, or on the brink. And there’s a pinch of magical realism and quite a lot of black humour…’

Then I sort of trail off, and end up saying something lame like, “I really like it.” Which is a ridiculous thing to say, because of course I really like it, I’ve been working on it nonstop for months and I’ve sliced out a huge chunk of my heart and put it down on paper.

But by and large people are understanding. What I’dlove to do, though, is just spout a stream of words (with no conjunctions) that describe what it’s about. Which would be messy and incomprehensible, but fun.

So here goes:
Strange Nervous Laughter is about (in no particular order)

• love
• sex
• food
• Durban
• heat
• the sea
• childhood being carried into adulthood
• corpses’ toenails
• garbage
• small dusty supermarkets
• motivational speakers
• expectation
• aloneness
• pick-up lines
• travelling
• picnics
• family (or lack thereof)
• parent-child bonds (or lack thereof)
• small
• china ornaments
• scrunchies
• instant connection
• gradual fading away
• falling in and out of love
• dependency
• dates
• what’s left unsaid
• what we can’t say but want to
• gentle lies
• holding on
• cynicism
• beauty
• spite
• searching
• tea
• lots of tea
• all-green food
• loneliness
• whales
• fulfillment
• Only Great Love Will Do
• and more.

I’m pretty sure I’ve exceeded my word limit for today.
More tomorrow.