leaving everything behind

the full moon comes out tonight on a day when i begin the process of leaving and detachment. i used to be pretty good at this, but the last five years have been about attachment and building bridges, so expect a few missteps.




two weeks ago i quit all my jobs, upped, and headed down under. saying goodbye to gorgeous gavin today, i realise that maybe i dont want to be the leaving, as much as i dislike being left. there's been something like a suspension of disbelief in the past months. it was as if i never had to leave and i'm spending this perfect life in singapore. now there's no denying the change anymore, and i'm starting to hope again for more time. if there's anything the past year should've taught me, it is courage, understanding and love to cope with change, separation and all sorts of other upshetting things. if thats the case, im not off to a good start seeing how much i'm missing Gorgeous Gavin and Beautiful Byron Bay.

i fuck insects

we live in exciting times. the coach drops me off in byron bay earlier than i expected, and i found myself thrown out in the freezing east coast morning. the streets were limp and lifeless. with nowhere to go, no warm bed, nothing to do, i decide to pad up and try to get warmer. that takes a good ten minutes in the bus stop, during which i realise that there's no point in lying down in the cold, so i decide to walk around town and and then to the beach to watch the sunrise. that becomes the single most colossal decision of this month and sets the tone for the rest of the day.



as i look into the frigid distance at main beach, there are three hotties canoeing out to the julian rocks and there are... dolphins. two pods of dolphins just playing around, their black fins occasionally breaking the surface, just like in television. not bad at all.



i go towards the lighthouse with my haversack in tow, but it's getting warmer and i actually begin to perspire for the first time in a week. tshirt comes off, and so do shoes, and what a sight i must've been as i trekked along. a carpet snake comes out of hibernation to greet me. i say hello, we take a few pictures together, and he scoots away, so we go our separate ways.



up the lighthouse where the view is not so special (except if you psycho yourself into believing it is because it's the "easternmost point of the australian continent"), there's a volunteer chick showing people how to spot whales. she lends me a pair of binoculars - free - and i stand there for an hour with her and some other retirees from Blighty. well, of course there're whales, their shiny black backs catching the sun's rays and my heart melts from watching their gentle and quiet strength. they send a spray of water up, their tails pop up from the water when they dive down, and i'm thinking, this is fucking incredible.



afternoon was spent trying to be a surfie, the waves were wicked for an amateur, and we kept going at it till it was dark and too cold. we get back into town at six, and as far as i'm concerned, it could be midnight. im freezing, just wearing my boards, and i run into the hostel which two boys (this is Cute French Guy if i ever tell you about him) at the lighthouse recommended to me.

so i'm checking in, and for once i'm on the other side of the counter, and i'm playing the person who's My Favourite Guest Because He's Cute and Funny and Crazy Cool. i open the door to my dorm, and there's a dorm party going on. before i can say bugger off, they're offering me free chocolates and get this, surf lessons. thats, uh, good. so, free room and board from tomorrow onwards, free surf lessons, cute french boys and free internet. things are looking good.

before i left sydney, i told darius from confest that something will definitely happen, and many things have. it's amazing then, how in the midst of all this change there's still a very reassuring sense of continuity. ladies and gentlemen, everything is under control.

addendum:
i go with boys from dorm to cheekymonkeys and cocomangas, and for one night only, i'm living the east coast backpacker life. in a while though, the loud and bad music and overall ugliness of british gappers makes me leave for the warm comforts of bed. but not cute frenchie's.

AND THE CURE!!!

i've actually got a facebook account now, after so many years of holding out against friendster. paul from the inncrowd adds me to his facebook and i'm really delighted because he's such a cutie, and i really liked him from when he was in the hostel. ALSO because he's "IN FUCKING SYDNEY TOO"! so we meet today on oxford, and i wondered if something was up.

i'm sitting outside stonewall, the sun is full in my face and two council workers are doing what council workers do, or rather, not do. he appears looking really pasty and white, but cute. we settle down in battuta and i go for lemon twist tea by reflex. we're chatting for a little while about nothing really, when paul just came out and said it. which made things easier. we then spent hours on that little table beside the window watching boys and discussing our experiences. i'd jump him, but not yet, maybe when i have a joint and we both have jobs.

it's amazing because last we met we'd been trudging down selegie in the swamping heat, perspiring and looking for ah-balling. now we're walking down city streets together in jumpers, in the sydney winter, watching boys, and huddling together because of the cold. it's awesome, fucking amazing.




it's also really grand how i was working just last monday and now i'm cavorting around the harbour bridge and opera house and blue mountains and oxford street. things are happening so quickly now, and i simply do not have time for moments. it's all a whirlwind of dashing madness. this is 16, 17, 18, thinking of possibilities. it is now, on the train to byron and nimbin. to indonesia, to packing, saying goodbye to friends and then leaving. it's all happening now and i'm afraid i'll miss it. but we'll see, there's still the ocean to reckon with.

contentment eludes words

words come from lonely friday nights; words are the despairing exasperation of fat thighs and uneven chests. they are the friends of irresolution, unfulfilled wants and abandoned needs made real. when those things that exist only in imaginations are pronounced and enunciated, they are made real, expanded in consciousness and reality. but they are also confined, locked in alphabetical order. when lumps in the heart are put into text, they are known, catalogued and read like recipes for dinner.

then comes a time like tonight, 10pm at a bus stop in the east waiting to go to work in the quiet monday city. a swelling rises against the revolutions of tyres and rattling auto-parts. someone whispers, things will happen and it'll all be better. someone sits beside me in the front seat of the upper deck on the bus, and says to me, here we go! something says you dont know me but i make you feel frickin' good. there is no name, no way to say i know you, i've known you before. this is a sensation that drowns vocabulary and decimates grammar. it comes but leaves no mark on an empty page. so, when it goes and i get off the bus onto crazy and dark Indian streets, i forget what it feels like; i cannot call it back to play again when i like.