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.