Challenge Accepted!

by Celeste Barber

  I really struggle when it comes to writing about Jo, but I couldn’t write a book without including her because she was everything to me.

  I could tell you about when she was diagnosed with cancer and decided to go to Bali to train as a yoga teacher.

  I could tell you how I thought she was crazy and I suggested that, instead of going and doing something as horrible as yoga in Bali and being away from me for any longer than the time it took her to go to the toilet, that she should instead just lie in my bed forever so that I could bring her cups of tea, rub her feet, make her laugh, and do anything possible to take her cancer away.

  I could tell you how much I regret not telling her I loved her every single second she was alive.

  But I can’t. Not yet. It’s too hard. And the thought of reliving losing her again is unbearable.

  So instead I will tell you about the wonderful, beautiful girl I met on All Saints, who EVERYONE loved, and I mean everyone. I will tell you about Jo and the time she finally convinced me to go to yoga with her.

  While Api and I were broken up, I moved to Bondi Beach with my friend Wil. He and I had lived together before in Coogee with a group of other freshly graduated actors, and we definitely didn’t smoke like chimneys and experiment with drugs . . . you did!

  Living with Wil, or Wilma as I like to steal from Will and Grace, was the best. We got a shitty place on the beach at North Bondi because in Bondi you only live in shitty places unless you’re a cricketer and can afford a fancy two-bedroom apartment with actual walls. Then Wilma got a fancy job opportunity in Hollywood, baby! and he was on the next plane out of Oz to get his show on the road. After a few months of being in LA he realized he wasn’t coming back and would need to officially move out.

  I couldn’t believe my luck when Jo agreed to move in. Two roommates at a time in my life when I couldn’t have needed them more. Wilma, the best. Then Jo, the best. Me, emotional.

  When Jo moved in, it felt like Christmas every day. Every morning she would wake up and come into my room with a cup of tea and wish me “good morning” in her sweetly pitched voice. I would say something about hating mornings; she would laugh and tell me what her plans were for the day, always including me in all of them. On weekends or days off, Jo made me do things I didn’t want to do. She made me run and drink green juice and do yoga. No one else in the world has ever or will ever get me to do these three most hated things, and enjoy them.

  When we would walk down and get our horrible green juice (aptly named “veggie patch”), Jo would shriek at how I chugged it in two gulps.

  Jo: Don’t skull it!

  Me: It tastes like ass.

  Jo: Just sip it.

  Me: No way, I want it over and done with.

  Jo: You’re going to vomit.

  Me: Hopefully.

  A friend of ours, Mirrah, lived up the road with her boyfriend, Dave. She and Jo would do “soft sand” running together. I think it’s because they are sociopaths and were plotting to harm communities, but they said it was to get fit . . . whatever. So they would run up and down the soft sand of Bondi Beach daily. Mirrah is nice and cynical, so I’d enjoy her whinging afterward over a bottle of rosé and a soft-cheese platter. But Jo was always happy and perfect. Nothing was a hassle, and she loved how much I complained about most things—especially yoga.

  Mirrah, Jo, and I all worked on All Saints together. Mirrah joined the show soon after Mark died, and I thought she was the most beautiful girl in the world—aside from Jo, obviously. After the show was canceled, Jo went onto Home and Away, and I was a writer and actor on a football show. We had weird hours, but we would always make time to have a weekly “family” dinner after work at the local Thai restaurant with Mirrah, Dave, and Jo’s beautiful boyfriend, Jacky.

  Mirrah was just as stoked about the juice and the yoga and all the running as Jo.

  Being a university-educated actor (hello, juxtaposition!), I’ve done a fair bit of yoga. We did it every day at drama school as part of our movement classes. It was intense, and I didn’t really believe that holding a pose for what felt like four million minutes would get me to a high spiritual state. There is some good pot that can do that a lot quicker.

  Yoga, by definition, is “an ancient art based on a harmonizing system of development for the body, mind, and spirit”—which, when practiced in Bondi or LA, is a way of justifying wearing overpriced clothes and getting out of doing grown-up things.

  In the years after drama school, I really liked the idea of yoga—chilling out, getting centered, acting as though I’m a superior being because I “practice” daily. All of these things were appealing to me, but I saw it as a chore. It hurt, gave me a headache, and made me realize I’m not as flexible as old boyfriends said I was.

  Jo and Mirrah loved yoga. They would go to classes together three times a week while I stayed home and googled simple hot-pot recipes.

  I loved these ladies so much, so when they asked me to join them I was equal parts excited and petrified.

  Me: Oh, I don’t know—yoga kind of freaks me out. I don’t think I’ll be very good.

  Jo: What?! No! You’ll be fine.

  Mirrah: I’m not very good either; you’ll be totally fine. You used to dance, right?

  Me: Yep.

  Jo: And didn’t you do a heap of yoga at uni?

  Me: Well, we did, but it was just a series of movements over and over again; it wasn’t a crazy class full of bendy models.

  Mirrah: Oh, just shut up and come. We can all be shit together.

  Me: I don’t know . . .

  Jo: We can have wine for dinner after class.

  Me: SOLD!

  As I don’t do anything by halves, I jumped in the deep end and got a ten-class pass—yep, that’s right, I was going to yoga the shit out of yoga and show it who was boss once and for all. Also, I was living in Bondi, and if you don’t do yoga when you live in Bondi, people think you are a leper or, even worse, a miner.

  So I got my mat, sold my puppy to buy the correct attire, and headed off to my first proper-dopper yoga class.

  When Mirrah and I got there the room was so dark and smelled so good. Oh God, it smelled good. It smelled like roses and lavender and warm hugs and fried rice. The only form of light was the candles at the front of the room, and some crazy incense gave me that awesome feeling you get when you just finish a sneezing fit. All the people who had just done the previous class were floating around the room putting their personalized mats and blankets away. They spoke to each other with their hands in prayer position, using long, low, one-word sentences and adding the “r” sound A LOT.

  Hiiiiii

  Namastarrrre

  You trrroo

  Love yorrruuuuu

  Thank yorrruuuu

  Coffeeeee??

  Yeahhhh

  Greaaaaat

  This place is fucking bananas.

  We found our place on the floor, put our mats down, and I got ready—ready to turn over a new organic yoga leaf.

  A very bendy man stood at the front of the class in pants that looked like they were worth more than my uncle’s boat. He looked everyone in the eye, welcoming all of us to this sacred space, a space that before today I thought was a dodgy junkyard. Now, I’m not good at eye contact at the best of times, so this individual eye penetration was a confronting way to start something that I was already confronted by.

  After the silent eye-sex we were into it. Yoga—not sex. There were people next to me bent in half, attempting to lick their backs, and I did my best to keep up. From back licking we snapped—ahem, flowed—into some sort of leg-above-head stuff, and then from there our coccyx attempted to balance on our ear. (NB It was our right ear, of course, because balancing one’s coccyx on one’s left ear would ruin one’s flow and, well, just be silly.)

  The people around me, including my yoga traitor friends, had finished the first sequence with ease and were gearing up to go again.

  Shit?! How did this happen? What had I missed?
I hadn’t even had a chance to adjust my activewear out of my camel toe, and we’re going again?!

  I took a deep breath, and I realized that I was being thrown off by the lack of “five, six, seven, eight” (did I mention I used to dance?), so I thought I’d revert to what I knew. I’d watch the choreo—ahem, sequence—watch their moves, take it all in, then catch them up on the next round. Great, a plan! I’m in business! I’ll probably be invited to the front of the class to show my moves and be given a patchouli candle in celebration.10

  So as my fellow yogis proved that a spine is purely for decoration, I stood silently and watched, tapping my foot along to the beat I’d created in my head.

  As I was standing still, I noticed Guru McBendy glide his way over to me. I immediately felt validated; I thought, “Here we go, from one movement expert to another, he can see I’ve got the posture of a former dancer,” and as I began to bend down to roll up my borrowed mat and begin my stride of pride to the front of the class, he stood directly in front of me and through a coconut-milk, decaf-latte breath said, “If you don’t know what you’re doing, crouch down on your mat and divert your gaze. You’re putting people off by just standing there.”

  With that he eye-fucked me again and glided off.

  I couldn’t believe it. I had done nothing wrong! Yet I was in trouble. I got in trouble at yoga. THIS IS WHY I DIDN’T WANT TO GO. I DON’T BELONG THERE.

  As I crouched down on my mat and assumed the fetal position, I looked to Mirrah for support, expecting a “how fucking dare he say that to you” look, or at the very least a “I’m so sorry I dragged you here” vibe. But Mirrah had all of a sudden found her zen, which involved making eye contact with anything and anyone but me.

  I stayed in child’s pose (a stupid name for a pose, as I’ve never seen a child in that pose EVER!) until the end of class, sorry, “practice.”

  There is a twenty-minute meditation at the end of each class when people wrap themselves up in between three and forty-six blankets, put socks and eye pillows on, and lie there like they have actually done a hard day’s work in their life. I usually fall asleep in the meditation part of anything, but I was so embarrassed and furious about being yoga shamed that I was tense as hell and stiff as a board, cursing under my breath at every instruction.

  Guru McBendy: Now, close your eyes, and take a deep breath in.

  Me (in my head): Shut up, dickhead.

  G McB: Imagine all the negative energy leaving your body.

  Me: I bet you’re still wearing the same undies you had when you were twelve.

  G McB: Now fill your entire body with warm light.

  Me: Your face looks like a dropped pie, fuckhead.

  Yep, no one knows rage like a below-average child dancer who is shamed in yoga class.

  After class, Mirrah and I recited the goings-on of the class to Jo, laughing hysterically at the bullshit events that we had experienced. Jo was mortified that I had these experiences at her beloved yoga, and Mirrah couldn’t really remember any of it because during meditation she managed to fall asleep so deeply that she shocked herself awake by farting.

  Jo was brighter than the sun.

  She was my best friend, my sister, and one of the greatest loves of my life.

  She let me hate yoga, which I’m forever grateful for, and I will love her every single day for the rest of my life.

  10 Fuck patchouli.

  The One Where I Discover Being Famous on Instagram Is Like Being Rich at Monopoly

  I think it’s fair to say I’m pretty successful on social media. I’m not getting paid $400,000 to promote detox tea, Kardashian-style (true story), but I’ve got more than four million Instagram followers, and in my book—and the book of my teenage stepdaughters—that is kind of totally hectic and OMG, like, fully crazy.

  I didn’t always have a world-famous, highly entertaining Instagram account; I used to have a super-normal account and post really boring photos like most of you. You know the type of photos—ones of my feet, because God knows no one believes you have feet unless they are posted on Instagram; it’s the same for breasts and pert bums, so it seems. I’d also post the obligatory food photos, although fortunately no one ever questioned whether I was ever eating to justify posting photos. I’d like to get a bit creative, and I’d post photos of me eating while my feet were also in the pic. Really reinventing the wheel over here, you guys.

  Then I had children, so it would have been downright neglectful if I hadn’t posted photos of their feet. I didn’t breastfeed, so there was no point in posting any photos of my children being formula-fed since birth, because I would have been lynched and would be writing this book from a hospital with a bloody syringe as a pen and my upper thigh as the paper. I love Instagram, I really do. I remember when it first came out. “Dropped”? “Hit the market”? “Launched”? “Lost its virginity”? I don’t know what the phrase is for the arrival of a new app, but I remember I was excited. As a child of consumerism and the unofficial face of ADD, this shit was right up my alley, because it required the attention span of a cashew nut: approximately five seconds.

  You see, I’m a picture-book kind of gal. Words scare me. Sure, they excite me too, but I’m not super smart and I get scared of them. But pictures? Come on! I love them, they are all I need, they can tell a thousand words, right?

  I love a good magazine, and Instagram seemed like the digital version of the magazine world: pretty pictures coupled with snappy headlines/captions.

  My go-to magazine is InStyle. I always loved and collected it—until I had children and realized that InStyle and parenting/stepparenting are as compatible as tits on a bull. I had to give one up; turns out trying to give up kids is a little more frowned upon than canceling a magazine subscription. But back in my heyday, when I was living alone in my studio apartment in Kings Cross, I never missed an issue. I had so many that I fantasized about using them as the legs of a coffee table with an old mirror resting on top, creating a super-fancy piece of art/furniture fit for a Tom Ford film. But instead I stashed them under my bed in the hope that the creativity and style would seep through my mattress into my mind during the night.

  After a while, as my collection of magazines was getting a little out of hand, instead of just throwing them out like Rihanna might throw out shade, I decided each month I would sit with a family-size packet of Allen’s Party Mix lollies and cut out the different sections of the magazine. I would paste them into an overpriced artist’s sketchbook I had purchased with the tips I made from being a waitress at a theater restaurant and make my own little InStyle highlights each month.

  The cover image would go in first; I’d cut out the cover model and paste in the headlines around her, coupled with the date, which I hand-drew in multicolored pencils. (Did I mention I was in my twenties?) Images of what fashions were in season that month followed, and then I would cut out the feature article, and around it I would paste in the images of whatever celebrity was being interviewed and highlight any quotes I found interesting.

  The makeup suggestions came next, then the feature on an Australian performer. (This is my favorite part of the Australian InStyle magazine; they always do a three-page feature on an Australian entertainer toward the back of the magazine. I still stand in supermarket aisles flicking to the back to see which Australian actor, comedian, model, or writer is being featured this month—“No, still not me? Oh well, maybe next month.”) Then I’d finish with the images of houses and food.

  My edited version of the magazine would occupy between five and nine pages of my art book, and that was all I needed. Just the pictures; then I knew what was going on.

  So when Instagram first dropped? (AHH, here we go again. “Was birthed to the world”? “Popped its cherry”? “Initially assaulted our senses”?), I thought, “Yes! This is the Celeste scrapbook version of Facebook. There will be photos, and that’s all I need.” How fun—I loved seeing famous people post weird photos of themselves, giving us ordinary peasants a glimpse int
o their crazy world.

  But after a few months of this I became aware that these celebrity lifestyles were starting to be seen as “normal,” and a whole new culture of the most ridiculous photos was born.

  Images programmed to make us feel like we weren’t good enough started seeping onto Instagram. Photos like one of a prepubescent lady with a face she didn’t grow herself, in pastel activewear, sipping a black-and-green health drink on a yacht on the French Riviera with the caption “School drop-off can be such a drag. #mumlife #blessed #whyme” were starting to make their way in between the everyday candid shots of friends’ kids and three-legged dogs.

  Hang on a minute! That isn’t what drop-off looks like, is it? Oh shit, is it?

  Then I started seeing people I know and love filter and crop their images to the point where I had to check the username to identify whose photos I was looking at.

  Now, don’t get me wrong, I love some editorial photos—you know, the ones where incredible supermodels are wearing clothes that only they are allowed to wear, and are on top of a building on a motorbike, with gimp masks on and shaved heads and nipple tassels, selling us the new empowering fragrance from YSL or DKNY or ABC. Yeah, those ones, the ones everyone knows are ridiculous and unattainable. The ones that only one type of lady is allowed to be a part of. The ones that make us have a moment of, “Oh fuck, is that how I should look if I want to be in a gimp mask on a motorbike on a roof?” Yes. The answer is yes, that is how you need to look to be a part of this ridiculous shit.

  It has taken us years to get to this place of realizing that is bullshit and flat-out body shaming, so we can put down the magazine and move on with our day, without anyone getting too upset or confused. Even the models, the photographers, and the brand know what they are doing: showing us what we are not allowed to have and can’t afford.

  Some people love it, some people hate it, but we all know what it is. Unattainable. Fake.

  That’s fine. As I said, I think there is a place for these sorts of editorial photos. I could even go as far as to say that that is art. This stuff doesn’t confuse or upset me anymore; it just makes bread taste even better.