So this is my drive to work:
I wish you could see it when the sun is out, like I did on my way to work.
(I took this picture on the way home. I got out of the car and stood in the middle of the road, and no-one minded.)
In the distance, just before the ocean, is a steeple and a white dome that glows like an easter egg in the morning. That sight makes me want to jump out of the car and stop all the traffic and shout STOP! LOOK! ISN'T IT MAGNIFICENT?! It makes me want to run around naked, dragging paper streamers behind me, and dance around a fire in the daylight.
When did this scrappy scene of telephone wires, potholes and traffic hum become home for me? When did it replace the smell of gravel dust and deisel and the strange noisiness of miles and miles of wheat, the buzz of a westerly through fencing wire?
I felt small, on the farm, and a little afraid. I was a foreigner there: the only human in a world full of noises that were more at home than I was. And I'm foreign here too, but it's becoming more familiar. I'm enjoying the sense of knowing my way around this strange country. I feel like an experienced tourist.
This reminds me of home (or of my grandmother. I get the two confused.) One day I want a house like this, with a Norfolk Island pine in the front yard, and a big, dark verandah. I want crumbly walls and worn-down floorboards.
And I want a prickly green-grey plant like this:
I want to show off. And I want my tummy to be flatter when I do.
I want a gypsy skirt, with lots of colourful pockets. And in my pockets I want useful things, like:
- scissors
- cotton
- lozengers
- a mud map
- tiger balm
- crayons
- bandaids
- a harmonica
- a whistle
- and lots of other things
I like to catch the sky pretending to be God.
Some days I'm more homesick than others.
5 comments:
I visited Perth while I was in the US navy in 1993 and loved it immensley. When I was discharged, I applied for permanent residency and had every intention of emigrating. Then I went out for a couple of drinks with some friends back home and a couple of weeks later, I sobered up just enough to realize that I had drank away my airfare to Oz.
Seeing those pictures kind of reminded me how much I miss that place.
Agreed about the bandaids and the tiger balm. You never know when you're going to run into a wounded tiger.
Lovely post.
Hi Jep, thanks for dropping in :)
PC - Based on your comment alone, I am most definitely going to get some Tiger Balm. I love the image.
I'm a faced friend who reads this blog along with the faceless friends. So how much do I know about you? Probably somewhere between too much and not nearly enough.
Hmmm. For instance, HB, now you know that I really shouldn't. Shouldn't. Write while I'm feeling maudlin. I make very little sense at the best of times, even less so then.
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