Sea Souls & Shiny Linda

Goodbye’s too good a word, babe.

What a fantastic few days we had.

Though only a few weeks ago I hadn’t met a single one of these lovely people, I can still say with certainty that this little camping escape held some of my favourite days to date. Five hours south of our Wollongong home, my littlest Linda joined my new mates and me into the windy, stormy wild just outside of Bega. Every moment between the juicy secret-sharing on our road trip down and the tight squeeze with Kim Churchill fast drive home, either made me giggle, threw me into cartwheels, or took my breath away. And between the stimulants of goon etc., I know I won’t be able to share the details that settled deepest into my enraptured consciousness during those days, but I will do my best to outline a few of my most favourite moments…  

That first night will always be my most treasured. Settling into the site, popping our first shiny bag of straight ‘straaalia, tucking closely around that fire. The compelling combination of sweet wine & smoke, the magnetic force of that shotgun system, inhaling/exhaling equal parts charm and illusion. Sharing whole parts of our souls through the deeply indrawn undisclosed; the pull of our own inner fumes, taking deep drags of each other’s essence; being spirited away by the hooch and the happenings.

And soon (hours and hours later), we are stumbling further into the night, into the darkness, down the cliffs, over the rocks, through the sand and the salt and the thrill of some electrifying calling. As if summoned to this supernatural scene, we are submissive, compliant, surrendered to the luminous spell which has become of the sea.

I have written about this before, because I have experienced this before. But before feels nowhere like how this felt here. The first time I experienced this maritime magic, it was on complete accident. It was a midnight skinny dip in the calm, warm rolling ripples surrounding our Thai island. It was pure happenstance, a freak misadventure that left me feeling similarly mystified. But without diminishing that enchanted memory, I will simply say that this felt different.

I can’t put my finger on why or how, but it was something about that pull. We were drawn to it, just as we were drawn to each other. We had no control over the effect it would leave, even if we had seen this show before. So we simply stood, in arms, in awe, in pale comparison to the energy that radiated before us. The waves shooting bolts of incandescence and we are content feeling small and insignificant by contrast. Horizontal lightning, our feet turning neon blue. All we had to do was dip our toes and open our souls and watch the sky in the sea perform for us. We are nothing next to this force of aquatic authority.

And then suddenly (maybe in the other forces of substance playing on my mind) I became aware of the peculiar thought that none of this was real. And I was so stunned by this strange realization that my mind stopped. I was fully conscious, but there were no more thoughts. I felt drawn into what seemed like a vortex of energy; a slow movement at first, and then accelerated. I was gripped by an intense calm and all of my muscles began to numb, relaxing into the other being that stood as one with me in those crashing waves. I let myself fall into that void.

Without any thought, I felt, I knew, that there is infinitely more to life than we realize. That soft luminosity filtering through my eyes and into my soul was love itself. It was my love, for this life. It was my true nature as the ever-present I am: consciousness in its pure state prior to identification with form. As if I had just come into existence. I began to purely understand that ocean force and its universal purpose of cutting through heavy layers of mental resistance, to help us reach that place within us where the truth is recognized when it is felt. And even though what sparked this profound string of thoughts was the questioning of my current reality, there was then a feeling of exaltation and heightened aliveness, as something within me says: “Yes. I know this is true.”  

I have no immediate recollection of what happened just after that.

The next moments I can claim, we were dancing in the sand, flicking blue stardust from our toes, sparks, beads of pure phosphorus, marveling at the beauty and aliveness of it all. The remaining hours of that first night were lived in a state of uninterrupted deep peace and bliss. I felt safe, I felt content, I felt cared for.  

Our second day together brought a light rain and early buzz. That tiny tin shack, the perfect little shelter and amplifier of those soothing summer sounds. In some silly midday merriment I made this note in my mobile, ‘The sound of soft acoustic guitar with beating down tin roof rain... Absolutely nothing, forever, will ever come close.’

I know, there’s something in the rain, calling us, it’s calling us by name.

Later that afternoon I take another timeout to write, “…the rain is still drizzling, the grey is hanging in the air, our tent, our stuff, our lives are soaked. It's so fucking good. I'm looking out over a beach, standing on top of a mini cliff, the rainy waves rolling, not another soul in sight. I'm IN AUSTRALIA. I'm sitting in a tin shack with 5 mates I didn't even know a week ago. I’m 5 hours south of my house. I'm laughing my heart out. I'm so happy. 5 strangers, 5 fantastic souls, swapping all the stories, having all the giggles, skulling all the goon before noon.”

We were rewarded in our easy efforts to make the most of that rainy day with a picture-perfect Tuesday arvo of sunshine and spiced rum and slip and slides. I am still feeling the effects of those sun-kissed hours, but my goodness they brought some laughs. In the evening we kept a close eye on the horizon from up atop that tiny tin roof, letting our minds continue to alter as the daylight disappeared. Passing puffs and strumming chords. For this final night together, we travelled for our fire; a beautiful cave-covered creation fit for the exact number of souls present. And it just felt nice to be close to him, even if maybe this was the last time.

And it’s not lost on me that so few words were shared between the warm flames or the silver bag or the glowing waves or the sweet, shot-gunned smoke. No liquor-lipped loaded guns. No clear indications at all about the what now & what’s next. Only so much potential to leave you with some inevitable wonder: maybe you start questioning what was real in that brief, honeyed chapter of these early summer stories, and what was merely invented, constructed, embellished or full-out fabricated on the canvas of circumstance and intoxication.

It’s easy to wonder. It’s easy to wish for some definite knowledge, some certainty in validity and authenticity. But instead I choose to let it be. And what will come to me in clarity will arrive organically. And in the end it can’t matter either way – whether it’s been made more vivid to me in only my own romantic soul, or whether it was as genuine and absolute as I felt it deep down to be, it simply was. And it was wonderful. And nothing will take away from the rush that these weeks were, and how beautifully these past 4 days concluded it to be.

You acknowledge, you appreciate, you take one last strong inhale of those deep campfire scents imbedding each fabric of your world, and you have faith it will all happen the way it’s meant to.  

Our drive home inspired one last cellphone sentence, ‘It's noon on a Wednesday. My eyes are closed tucked tightly into the back seat of a fast car playing slow Dr. Dog ... It's noon on a Wednesday. This fact still feels irrelevant, but I know soon it will need to mean something. It's just that we've lost all sense of time these days. Not that 4 days is nearly long enough to lose track of whole waking hours... But somehow we seemed to. We got absolutely lost in them, and now coming out, coming to, coming clean seems weird & foreign.’

And I’ll remember that last long embrace, thinking to myself that even the most beautiful experiences come and go. But more fundamental, perhaps, than any experience I’ve had during this early summer fling is the undercurrent of hope and beauty that will likely never leave me. And already I can tell that at times it might be very strong, almost palpable, and others will feel it too. And then sometimes, it will just be somewhere in the background; underlying, echoing, like a distant melody…

So I’ll just say, fare thee well.

{Video Documentation of the Trip}