Monthly Archives: September 2013

Raking up

30 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by in photos, plants

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I have found a job that gives me pleasure and brings no ghosts of Warsaw in its wake, although it does remind me of the fire horrors of summer in the bush. Early on Saturday morning I went out onto the hillside on the bush block where I spend weekends, found the blue rake and began to pile leaves and sticks ready for removal to the mulch tank. I enjoyed the rhythm of it, marking out the boundaries for the next rake and combing through grass clumps to extract leaves and casuarina needles. The discovery of fading hardenbergia, tiny Lomandra flowers, button flowers in their pink phase, and two species of eggs and bacon drew me back into my bush life and reminded me of past years of raking. It's satisfying to have here-memories layered, to see my mounds multiplying and to feel the beginning of a blister near my thumb and a slight ache in muscles not used in propelling a twin pram. Over two days, I produced thirty small heaps and felt content in my present.

 

 
 
 
 
 
 

 

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Outriders 1

29 Sunday Sep 2013

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Occasionally I take a photo I really like, but it doesn't fit a theme or a blog subject. Of course, I can't let it just fade into oblivion, so I'll post it as an outrider.

This one was taken during the stopover at Dubai airport as I flew home from Warsaw. It's a reflection of travellers in the high glass ceiling, and probably reflects something of that non-existent feeling you get mid-flight.

 

 

Returning

29 Sunday Sep 2013

Posted by in ruminations

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I am back at Potato Point, at my address, in my house, pleased by ocean and bush. But I am also feeling quite unanchored. My shadow self is here, its shape imprinted on the rock face at Jemison's beach. But just under the surface of my skin is an uncertain being who has lost the firm shaping granted by Warsaw and twins. I feel slightly bewildered by my life here and unable to feel steady in it.
 
I decided to hit the ground running when I returned this time, and thought I had managed it. I should've been warned when I headed off confidently for a blood test, and realised when I was sitting in the waiting room holding my large square Number 1, that I had failed to fast. I continued to delude myself by action: organising the framing of a print; having my eyes checked and choosing new frames; catching up with friends. Then, five days after I landed, I found myself asleep in the chair at the living room table at 9 am, with no idea of time, place or identity. I continued delusory action: shopping, taking myself off for a Chinese meal, dealing with a few business matters. By 2 pm I was back in bed in deep intermittent dozing, until 7 am the next morning. By lunch time I was prone and asleep again.
 
So how do I re-grasp my life here? It needs a revamp, but it's a bit like a watermelon seed, a dragonfly, lightning. It slips out of reach whenever I get close to thinking “Aha! That's what my life looks like!” I place intentions firmly on my calendar – lots of them – and it looks like a life, but there's no centre. I'm not even holding onto the sense of loss because I won't see my 9 month old grand kidlets until they are 13 months old.
 
I don't seem to be able to find a calm place where I can draw in the experience in front of me. My mind skitters and everything that happens is a palimpsest. The parklands of Powisłe superimpose themselves on the tangled grass, casuarinas and spotted gums on the Potato Point road, and the here-skies merge into those of Warsaw. The pinkness of Australian banknotes startles, and when I pick up a book and find it is in English I am unreasonably surprised.
 
I am bewildered, disconnected, outside myself, waiting for my Warsaw self to recede and my Potato Point self to return.
 
 
 

 

Every day, something new

25 Wednesday Sep 2013

Posted by in photos, Potato Point

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This morning I went out to walk along the beach feeling a bit jaded, and thinking “I've walked the beach so many times. I've seen everything.” And of course nature proved me wrong.

Crossing the dunes, I encountered a lengthy and chubby diamond python. He was unperturbed by my presence, lying along the dappled sand and nosing into a scrubby dune wattle. He didn't move as I circumambulated him, closing in for some closeups.

 

 
 

 

The beach had collected sea-weed, and amongst it I found my second surprise: large jellies, many a good 30 cm across and 10 cm tall, blue and honey-coloured and viscous.

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The palette of my jelly finds was very different from that of Christine, only a few kilometres north, and a day earlier.
http://dadirridreaming.wordpress.com/2013/09/24/lll-is-for-lovely-lilac-jellyfish/
 

 

 

Traces

23 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by in photos, South Jemison's beach

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On my first morning back in Potato Point, I went for a 6 am walk, something I haven't done for far too long. I rediscovered many of the pleasures of home: the morning light, reflections in the creek, the spring flowerings, the cliff face, and traces of activity on the beach. There were the footprints of birds, people, kangaroos, dogs and undersand creatures. There were traces of the recent stormy weather: tangles of seaweed, feathers and bluebottles and a steeply eroded sandcliff. There were the tracks of the sea: sand ripples, a thin line of fresh tiny debris left behind by receding waves, There were traces of human activity: a cluster of fishing lines stuck in the sand ready for today's action and the print of a flipper heading for the waves. On a grander scale, there were traces left by wind and water and upheaval and geological time in the weathering and shaping and colouring of the rock face.