i'm back on my porch listening to springsteen after two hectic weeks in sydney. sydney didn't feel like home, but it still feels as if it should. i guess hometowns never quite sit right again once you've left them. outsider status again. but it was good to see people i love, and the ocean.
on a quiet sunny day i caught the train to stanwell park and rode my bike across the sea cliff bridge and down to austinmer, where i used to live and which i've fictionalised in the book i'm writing. people were nice and the ocean was the ocean. i could move back there, i reckon. the pub's still the same. they've made a few token concessions to gentrification which involve mission brown paint and two dollar shop light fixtures. the same ten middle-aged blokes still drink there. i walked in to the opening bars of flame trees and thought fuck, why did i leave?
and springsteen sings: i was unrecognisable to myself
i had a sort of epiphany over a schooner of old, listening to the blokes banter about losing a ham raffle at the bowlo, wondering what it was about austi that makes it feel like home. i stole a bunch of bar stories for my stories. i stole that whole section of coast. it became imaginary, a part of my invented world. and that's where i really live. i figured if i keep writing stories i can make that home bigger and more real, more perfect. it's a bit sad really.
and alice? it's partly the name, if i'm honest. i'm trying to fall down a rabbit hole. but it's good to be back. the smell of warm eucalyptus, my room full of dust from two weeks without sweeping, people crawling out of the river in the morning and saying g'day, branches down everywhere from a storm i wish i'd witnessed. baby snakes in the front yard at work. i walked up spencer hill yesterday to watch the sunset-moonrise and there were a couple of rock wallabies totally posing in front of the full moon. i'm still in love with the desert.
sha la la la la la la la
it's like being polyamorous. it's a far more stimulating lifestyle, but you always feel like you're letting someone down or missing out on something. kids growing up and people you can't just drop in on cause they're 3000km away.
that's enough tired emo blog. i'm so not on fire, boss.
in far more uplifting news, i won a prize. the cheque featured in a lovely pile of mail i opened when i got home, but it was the letters from friends in faraway places which made my day.
also for those of you in alice i am reading at the launch of the Ptilotus Press anthology on thursday 7th december, 5:30-7:30pm at the Andy McNeil room in the posh new council office. see you there.
on a quiet sunny day i caught the train to stanwell park and rode my bike across the sea cliff bridge and down to austinmer, where i used to live and which i've fictionalised in the book i'm writing. people were nice and the ocean was the ocean. i could move back there, i reckon. the pub's still the same. they've made a few token concessions to gentrification which involve mission brown paint and two dollar shop light fixtures. the same ten middle-aged blokes still drink there. i walked in to the opening bars of flame trees and thought fuck, why did i leave?
and springsteen sings: i was unrecognisable to myself
i had a sort of epiphany over a schooner of old, listening to the blokes banter about losing a ham raffle at the bowlo, wondering what it was about austi that makes it feel like home. i stole a bunch of bar stories for my stories. i stole that whole section of coast. it became imaginary, a part of my invented world. and that's where i really live. i figured if i keep writing stories i can make that home bigger and more real, more perfect. it's a bit sad really.
and alice? it's partly the name, if i'm honest. i'm trying to fall down a rabbit hole. but it's good to be back. the smell of warm eucalyptus, my room full of dust from two weeks without sweeping, people crawling out of the river in the morning and saying g'day, branches down everywhere from a storm i wish i'd witnessed. baby snakes in the front yard at work. i walked up spencer hill yesterday to watch the sunset-moonrise and there were a couple of rock wallabies totally posing in front of the full moon. i'm still in love with the desert.
sha la la la la la la la
it's like being polyamorous. it's a far more stimulating lifestyle, but you always feel like you're letting someone down or missing out on something. kids growing up and people you can't just drop in on cause they're 3000km away.
that's enough tired emo blog. i'm so not on fire, boss.
in far more uplifting news, i won a prize. the cheque featured in a lovely pile of mail i opened when i got home, but it was the letters from friends in faraway places which made my day.
also for those of you in alice i am reading at the launch of the Ptilotus Press anthology on thursday 7th december, 5:30-7:30pm at the Andy McNeil room in the posh new council office. see you there.
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