The Drifter

Like a nomad, I travel with a shabby handkerchief folded at it's four frayed corners. Bits and bobs fill the soiled blue cloth, red patch over white.

I once carried a burning ambition in this tote...so nearly tempted combustion. But I lost it somewhere along the way...I must have walked too far into a storm. Rekindling the flame is always difficult in the rain.

After a time, my load grew heavy with responsibility...a weight like that can break your back. It took several legs of the journey for me to find a way to balance the weight...but the skill came with time.

And now, I've nothing left to carry but an array of odds and ends. A length of twine, tattered and tangled, for the loose ends in life. A cardboard arrow, to keep me on the straight and narrow. A pistol, so I can shoot the stars (or was it shoot for them?)...I see no difference these days.

I drift from place to place with my Huck Finn carry-all, hoping to discover some wonderful sort of secret. Does such a thing exist?

On a sea of infinite possibilities.

Like a blank page.

It always catches my breath.

So much is possible.

So much to gain.

So much to lose.

It is like drifting.

My feet no longer firm or flat against the ground.

I like it. Usually. It is pleasant. Usually.

I like to pretend I have much to offer.

It's nice to think about.

The truth is I am far too good at drifting.

I drift from one day to the next.

From one assignment to the next.

From one bus stop to the next.

From one conversation to the next.

Opinions? Do I have any? Sometimes I am not sure.

Conversations about views on socialism baffle me.

I am not political enough.

I am not driven enough.

I am not enraged.

I am not thriving.

I am a drifter.

I know where I stand- beneath a window. A window that is so picturesque it makes my head spin. And yet I seem to shrink. To cower beneath it.

Is it fear?

I don't feel afraid.

Is it sheer laziness?

Perhaps.

The vastness of this life astounds me.

Like lying in the cool grass at ten o'clock at night. Feeling the weight of the darkened sky pressing in on me. It wasn't depressing. It was just being.

In truth:

Our insignificance is so signficant.

Do not take this as depression or as a dusty melancholy.

It is merely a drifting thought.

Drifting thoughts. Like everything I simply let them pass.

Ramble.

My dreams are always dark. That is not to say that they are always frightening, but certainly, there is often an absence of light.

Too often, I dream of well-lit rooms that I am unable to see...someone has sewed my eyelids together.

Heathergirl once asked me what I would wish to know, if I was able to know anything. I replied with 'the lottery numbers'. But when all is said and done, I would dearly love to know what it is that I want from this world.

I firmly believe that these dreams are the key. The room that I stand in with such familiarity is, in fact, filled with answers - with objects and images and memories that piece together the puzzle of my deepest and most foreign desires. Sometimes I catch a glimpse - a flash of colour here or there. But nothing solid.

It is terrible to burn with such curiosity, and to be denied so relentlessly. I never can open my eyes wider than a slit. Perhaps one day.

I love the eve, but the dark often scares me. Not in the traditional way, you understand - I care not for those who dwell in shadows. I find it easer to think after a certain hour. I attribute this to growing up with a stringent bedtime - while my parents were indeed able to abscond with my flashlight and books (and at one stage, they took every book from my room), once the lights were out, and my eyes were closed, they could do nothing to stop me from thinking.

So late at night, and often early into the morning, I lay awake, the moon shining through my venetians, thinking things that have no doubt been thought a thousand times over, at some time or other. But of course, one doesn't think about that.

It isn't actually the dark that frightens me. We are companions to one another; a warm pair of arms to be held by as the rest of the world sleeps. My thoughts. It is my thoughts that sometimes frighten me - they are amplified in solitary. Why am I here? What is in store for me? Who am I? These are lonely questions at the best of times.

I wouldn't say that I love the light...for it is harsh on the muse. But, if only for a moment, I do love the morning. Nothing ever seems quite so terrible in the morning.

I can forget. I can simplify. I can open my eyes.

Incandescent mornings.

Harsh reality comes in the form of incessant beeps.
beep
Beep
BEEP.
each time more aggresive.
each time I hate it more.
It also comes with the sun
slipping sliently into my room. Into my dreams. into my peace.
Breaking and entering. Not so charming now is it?


The sheets are unwilling to let me go.
Maybe it is the other way around?
Tangled in their protective grip.
I want to give in. Stay trapped.
Stay warm. It is too easy/
I could learn to live with the light pouring in.
I could throw the damn alarm against the wall.
I could stay if you would stay.
Reality, however harsh, never seems to bother you.
Illuminated, you stand in your bare feet.
Whistling.
I hate whistling.


The coffee is always cold.
This does not help.
The dog needs to be let out.
Think of the dog. Poor Puppy.

The tea is amiable. Liquid sunshine.
Good Morning Sunshine.

The alarm has been silenced.
I hear you whistling .
I love whistling. The perfect 'O' of your lips. Your dancing eyes.
The toaster clicks as if desperate to join in the serenade.
Toast. Oh, isn't butter divintiy? The smell is like a brilliant hug.

The sunlit morning is no longer cumbersome.
It is blithe. Intuitive. It senses how much I need it.
Nothing is so bad in the light.
The light of you.
The light of facing what needs facing.
The light of waking up to a new day.

Then again-
I could always get heavy drapes and toss the alarm clock?

That Which Doth Speak Volumes.

The words were not enough. Her page was littered with hapless syllables; with generic symbols of a similar appearance to the ones he had drawn on her hand. But that had meant something.

Not the navy ink scrawled in indecipherable script across the creased lines of her palm. The straggly ink imprints were but a means to an end. No. That he had favoured her hand at all, was the tell-tale sign.

There had been paper - sheets of blue lined paper in scholastic abundance. He may have been unaware? She didn't think so. The warmth of his hand as it grasped her own told her more than his adorable stammering ever could have.

She had smiled - just a little, at his nervousness. There was no need for fear of offence. He had seen the sincerity in her eyes. Surely, he had noticed the tingling in her fingertips as he grasped them?

Theirs was a language that spoke volumes on it's own.

With a contented sigh, she scrunched up the note. It was not needed. Everything went without saying.

What You Say?

I have an active dislike for getting my hair cut. I think the methodology is cruel - no one should be forced to sit in front of a mirror, chin emphasised by the tight turtleneck of the mandatory smock, and wet hair clipped here in there a la Darla from Finding Nemo, while the contemporary hair sculptor clicks silver scissors around ones ears menacingly.

When the ends of my hair cry for a trim, and I am forced to undergo this humiliation, I always go to an Asian hair studio.

Call me what you will for my sweeping generalizations, but these people know hair.

On to my point:

I was interested to find that the hair dressers conversed with one another in their own language. This was a plus in many ways, because I detest making small talk of any description. But I spent the entire two hours wondering what they were talking about.

I would love to know another language...not because it's clever, cultured or impressive, but because I like to eavesdrop. I'm the kind of person that sits on public transport listening intently the conversation going on behind me. Blame Emily Rodda - I think it began one year at the Sydney Writers Festival, when she revealed in her speech that as a child, she would record the conversations of strangers in a special notebook.

Other people interest me. Generally, it is because I like to scoff at their insipid whinges, thereby cementing my misanthropnia. Also, the Captain Insano stories that I overhear become good anecdotes for later on. So you can imagine my frustration at not being in the loop.

All I could think of the entire shampoo and treatment was the episode of Seinfeld about Elaine and the Korean nail parlour. Were the wash girls talking about me? Picking on my hair? Scoffing at my gullibility? (I was, after all, paying $110 for a permanent dye and a trim) Healthy paranoia, yes?

What I would like, is to know several different languages, so that I could eavesdrop unhindered. Otherwise, a pocket translator.

Language. I firmly believe it was invented for the sole purpose of allowing people to eavesdrop on one another. That is certainly what we use it for, anyway.

Languaged.

Lang...

Lang syne.

Ah. The Scottish accent. One of my favourites.. though to be quite honest I have many favourites....The Scottish rates highly though.. perhaps I'm biased because it courses through by veins? Ha. I am a Disgrace to the Lindsay and McDonald clans I can't even pull off a decent crappy version of a Scots accent... auch aye.

My Granma calls bobby pins kirbies and she doesn't call crying babies 'crying babies'- she calls them 'greeting bearns'.

My Granma came from Kirkcauldy, Fife. She moved here in 1952. She does have a distinct accent- only I can't hear it....

She came out here with her best friend Marianne, Mariannes' sister Margaret and their brother Ian.

To Melbourne. My Granma went back to Melbourne recently, With Aunty Marianne ( Yes, Granma married Ian (aka Grandad). she's never been home to Kirkcauldy though. I know she misses it. She likes to talk about, meander down memory lane.. particularly when she and Aunty Marianne get together.. the have a good long blether. Aunty Margaret moved back to Scotland. Grandad died in 1997. Same time as Princess Diana.. only he isn't still in the papers only in our hearts. My Grandad was great. Grandad had the best laugh and made the best mashed potato and he loved macaroni and cheese. He was always laughing and always playing- he had a giant spoon the said 'Worlds Greatest Stirrer'. He was clever and brilliant and my sister never met him and now I am home alone crying and I'm not talking about language at all. It kills me because I was seven and I loved him and I never even got to say good bye. Bronwyn never got to say hello. It's all so fragile.

'In quiet moments when memories abound

we will have been honured to have known you

and call you, my husband, my father

my grandad,

my brother, my uncle

my friend.'