exasyz 14

i have certain emotions surrounding the annual Sculpture By the Sea.
And they're geographical.
For most people, it's a relaxing and cultural excursion, a day out with the kids, an excuse to walk by the sea, get some fresh air, enjoy some art.

This year is the 11th anniversary.
I was oblivious to it for the first 4, until i changed homes and moved into the area. Partnered. Settled down. Set for life.

The first year i was dropped off at Bondi and walked it alone. Needing space and giving it. My partner's son had not accepted that i was living with them now. And this was a custody night. So i left them to go home and have some time together. I walked the sculpture walk alone, wondering if this is what 'marriage' should be like.

The second year we walked it together. It wasn't bad, but often when the three of us tried to do something familyish together there were the attention struggles and i felt i wasn't wanted there.

The third year i missed. Maybe because the previous year was so un-fun or maybe because of the car accident. A P-plater drove into me. I flew off my bike, over her bonnet, landed on the road, on my chin, and my bike landed on top of me. So walking was out of the question for several days. I didn't ride again for 6 months.

The fourth year was hell. That was the first time we broke up, and I was distressed. He'd told me he "wanted to be alone" so i moved into an apartment for a while and suffered loneliness for the first time in my life. I did the walk with my sister and her new husband. They felt it would be good for me to get out and walk, which is a proven help with depression. But all i saw were happy couples walking the walk together, and happy families picnicking around the sculptures up on the grassy hill and i just wept.

Between then and the 5th year we'd ended up back together again, but for his son's sake I was still living half in the apartment (on custody nights) and back in my home the rest of the time. And still feeling slightly anxious for no real reason. I did the 5th walk with some colleagues, after an office lunch. It was strange and sad to be walking past the sculptures towards my home, but knowing i'd have to take a taxi across the city to the now hated apartment in a soulless new inner-city development. I smiled and told myself it would be ok, that the space and time alone on these nights was good for all three of us.

Eventually i gave up the apartment, moved back into my home and the anxiety dwindled away.

The 6th year, last year, i walked it in a kind of stupor. He'd really left me this time, in a painful and messy way, of course. I was deep in shock and grief. My over-stressed brain was incapable of laying down memory. I don't remember much about it at all. My brother was visiting from the states, so we walked together. He took some nice photos and i just walked, placing one foot in front of the other.

The 7th year, this year, was to be finally my own: my walk with the sculptures free of all that past crap. But it can come back to bite you on the ass when you least expect it. The trouble is that the walk connects my current home with my past home. And therefore with the people who are now living in my past home: him and his new flame.
I did it in two stages. First i enjoyed a cluster of the major works - on the grassy hill - one drizzly midweek afternoon after a relaxing massage and acupuncture session. But the second stage - the pieces along the walking track - was marred by a single idle thought. It occurred to me as i started out on an overly-crowded, sunday afternoon, that i could feasibly encounter or pass them on the path. Of course they'd do the walk at some stage. A happy couple, hand in hand. And i realized he'd never done that with me.
I blocked the thought and found a long moment of peace, midway. I sat on the edge of the high rocks watching the surfers; meditating on the way they're lying and paddling one moment, and standing up the next. Admiring the experienced riders who made their trips last for many seconds longer than the others. All that waiting for just one or two seconds on a wave.
But then i was walking again, heading back home, and the thought returned. Walked myself up into a crankiness; a tense indignation. Even after all this time they're still in my face, living in my suburb, coming in to my place of work, ruining my fun. And as these stupid, pointless, SENSELESS thoughts looped over and over, i noticed my old hip pain returning, my knee felt funny. My body was trying to tell me something.

But it wasn't until i came home and stepped in a puddle of cat pee that i really lost it.

On Monday i finally started that meditation course that i've been meaning to do for about a year.