First Light

Until the dawn it brings,
Another day to sing
About the magic that was, you and me.

A thin layer of sand details every surface of my world. In between my bed sheets, settled into the spine of my journal, under my fingertips as I type. Thousands of tiny souvenirs from my most favourite night so far. And it is not lost on me that I keep reclaiming that title, while each new night deserves a significant share…

See I'm all about them words

Over numbers, unencumbered numbered words

Hundreds of pages, pages, pages for words

More words then I had ever heard
And I feel so alive.

I remember admitting how conscious and meticulous and precise I am about choosing the words that craft the sentences that detail the time that we share. How particular I am about every expression, how careful of each connotation. Because these are the utterings worthy of that closest examination, and they should be finely formulated accordingly. Yet now it seems impossible to dictate these most recent moments. And I am not typically at a loss for words…

‘Cause you and I both loved,
What you and I spoke of.
And others just read of,
Others only read of.

I remember our 3am wandering, so far out at low tide, picking our perfect little patch of earth, sitting seemingly in the center of the ocean as we let it rush in all around us. And the moment we gave up trying to avoid having vulnerable hearts and salty socks…

And with this silence brings a moral story

More importantly evolving is the glory of a boy.

I remember suddenly noticing first light, not as if it crept up on us gradually (the way you’d think it would), but as if I closed my eyes for one mere second, one soft, sandy, tender moment, and by the time we pulled back and opened our eyes again, a brand new day was upon us. Just like that...

And it's okay if you have to go away

Oh just remember the telephone works both ways

And if I never ever hear them ring

If nothing else I'll think the bells inside

Have finally found you someone else and that's okay

‘Cause I'll remember everything you sang.

I remember him telling me my hair always smelled nice, and he’d never met anyone like me before.

I remember believing him.

Everything was radical and nothing sucked

It’s funny how it’s always the days that you wish to remain the most distinct which end up lost in the blur of it all. There are details about the past two weeks that I know I will never fully remember; even a few of the ones that I’m certain left some profound mark on this soul. But then there are the moments that have snuggled themselves (gently, deeply) into the clear confines of my mind, leaving delicate imprints on my memory forever. Those are the ones that remain. That inspire. That send this heart of mine dancing with the birds...

They have just been great days. Road trips and beach days, live music and lunch dates. Fresh fruit markets and OpShop finds. Tour managing an open mic artist ;) getting paid in beach burgers and mountain-top views. My last day of work at the marketing firm wrapped up with truffles & long blacks, securing the best thing that even came out of that job: a fantastic new friendship. I closed that mini professional chapter in my life here with confidence and dignity and firm handshakes and sincere well-wishes. I left the office smiling and then blasted through a fantastic 2 hours at the gym. It already feels so good to have that kind of time for me again.

Plus all of these little nightly adventures and 3am bedtimes are certainly worth quitting my day job for! And maybe sometimes the best things are the ones meant to be shortest-lived. Or at least that’s what we’re telling ourselves out loud under the warm early summer breeze, in those early morning hours, with red wine and $17 tequila laced through each sweet, silvery, uncensored remark; sincere, steadfast. And my thoughts are spinning, treasured, and we’re tracing circles on each others’ hearts. Maybe it’s nothing. These questions we’ve posed to the universe left hanging, enamored, with that thick pre-season air. Moonstruck. Intoxicated. Maybe it’s nothing at all.

But tonight, in these deeply-imprinted moments, every single notion is poetry in motion.

Winds of Change

And in the exact moment that I’m sitting down to write about a very familiar feeling creeping through me – a few crafty paragraphs on my most reoccurring theme – my phone rings.

I have been feeling this past week that it is time for a change. A real change. Not just the change in the new restaurant job I’ve been working, or the changes I've felt from the new boy I've been dating; a real, big change. I don’t know if it’s the slow transitioning seasons here down under, the inconsistency between 30+ sunny heat & cyclonic wind storms, but I have been feeling restless. It was such a perfect first month of the girls being here. We had some of the best times; it was new and exciting and fresh. But now they have moved into their own homes and started their own jobs and their own relationships and while it’s so nice seeing them come into their own little Aussie lives as I did nearly half a year ago… it also leaves me feeling like it’s time for my own transition, my own move, my own change.

Naturally, I consider planning my next escape, but those adventure ideas are halted by the fact that I really don't have that much time left here to even be planning such, not before I'll have to take off for my farm work pretty soon in the new year anyway...

And then my phone rings, and those details are confirmed, and 'all you have to do is find the date with the cheapest flight and let me know when to pick you up!' ... And it occurs to me, the perfect timing of this marvelous little world of mine, those 88 days WILL be my next adventure. And Tom at Eco Beach says I can start them absolutely whenever I want to. I could be on a plane next week, or I could hang ten for this Uni summer season, spend Christmas with my new loved ones down under, ring in the New Year and each new opportunity to come with some of my most special, and then hit the road to Broome once my apartment lease is up in January.

I still feel restless, even knowing that this adventure awaits. Even knowing that this adventure will be my absolute most challenging to date. Knowing that that will also make it one of the most exciting and inspirational. But for the next two months (almost exactly to the date), I will have so many incredible moments, so many wonderful experiences and exciting opportunities: Next week marks the official conclusion of the Uni year (so Weds/Thurs will be absolutely insane, to say the least). I already have another old friend coming into town straight from Canada next weekend for a visit, and a 4-day camping trip planned just following. Then it will be December and that means surfing and beach days and the largest pub crawl in the southern hemisphere (!!). Christmas – New Years – 2015 arrives – Recoup/recover/reorganize – and boom! It’ll be time to jet.  

…

Then again… a quick rip to Bali or Fiji in the next few weeks might not be the worrrssst thiiiing….

You take me higher then I've gone,

Thursday, Nov 13^th

“It was just one of those moments” … Those ‘pinch me’ moments. Those moments you’re left remembering and thinking about in 10 years, passing these moments forward.

The last time I can distinctly remember recognizing in the moment that I was having One Of Those Moments, I was zooming through the twisty turny roads along the coast of Italy, “So far it’s a fast drive down a country mountain-side highway, winding in and out of tunnels, around wide swerving curves. Hundreds of wild poppies. A hot air balloon hangs in the clear sky. And I’m laughing in my head at this picture, because this is a moment I refused to let myself imagine before I arrived here, in fear I’d be building expectations only to be disappointed. So now here I am, after just two weeks, flying through this incredible scene on my way to the Sea with three 20-something Italian boys trading the most beautiful-sounding sentences. There is old grandstand swing music playing on the tape deck, I can already feel the ocean air on my skin. How could life get better than this?”

I’m here now having another One Of Those Moments. Leaning back on both hands, legs out stretched, crossed loosely at the ankles, muscles soft through my whole body. I’m smiling. I’m looking out over the entire world. This view also brings me back to Italy, when we sat on the walls of that old church, overlooking the world, passing a warm bottle of wine between us. It’s like the sky is upside-down. Sitting there, looking over the world, shining, spotted, scattered sparkles. It was one of those moments…

Old Man Canyon is singing ‘Higher’, ironically enough, and his arm is criss-crossed intertwined with mine; leaning back, looking out. I’m in Australia, but I’m high, high up on top of the world with those rolling Aussie escarpments in the background. The air is warm, my skin shivers from something else entirely. It was one of those moments; just sitting and smiling and listening to that Australian accent, the slang, the laughter and I’ve lost track of what we’re talking about. The city night lights start to swirl together with our sweet smoke and secret smiles.

How could life get better than this?

4:57am; writing drunk & smiling like an idiot...

He likes to tell a ‘story with a groove,’ … something that ‘people can boogie to.’

And that’s the hook, whether he’ll ever know it or not, that’s what did it for me. That’s how he describes writing songs; not so unrealistic, not so literarily significant, but common and relatable and simple enough for any proper-worthy person to appreciate.

And maybe I’ll regret this, because maybe it’s too honest. But, when the heck has that stopped me in the past? And even more so now, what the heck is stopping me today? Tonight; this week, this nothing of a week that simply reminded me where I was and who I was and who I was not and who I was not with.

This guy is a great guy, and more so, he was great enough to inspire me to sit down, at 3:17am, and write about how great the night was. It had everything: my best Aussie mate, my fav suto-Aussie-ex-roomies-loves-of-my-life, it had cheap tequila, even cheaper beer, great live music, even better live conversation, it had objections, and potential for fall-throughs… but ultimately it had me, and it had him, and he made that feel like absolutely all that existed in this beautiful little world, and that was nothing awful.

In fact, it was something else.

We simply instigated human experience, and human curiosity, and we learned from completely different perspectives and upbringings and viewpoints. And perhaps I am just inwardly curious, unabashedly so, and maybe I just wanted to prove all of my roommates and my best local mates wrong, when each of them stated their own long-standing plea to be wonderful to this ‘local legend’ (more specifically so: not to “ruin him!”) … But either way… I did not. And he did not ruin me or my night (even when my entire clutch wallet was stolen, lol..) or my belief in something real and good existing again. It was great – it was more than great! It was exactly how it should be.

And turns out, that’s just it folks:

It should be great. Even if you never see the lad again, it should still be wonderful and hilarious and imaginative and boundary-pushing. You’ll never not deserve that guy to be giving his all, and to be honest, you should never not meet a guy who is willing to give that which is deserved.

You may not think it possible, you may view your ‘fish in the sea’ scenario as quite scarce, but then, out of the blue, something will surprise you. And something will continually catch you off guard, and though you have to wake up in two and a half HOURS to operate for 10 hours of work….

You’re still sitting around, nearly 4am, eating day-old fridge pizza, smiling like an idiot.