Day Twenty Nine

I wonder why I'm keeping these cities anonymous.
Why is it important that my experiences don't have an actual spot on the globe?
Why don't I want that fact to colour my reader's impressions?
It's especially mad given the 1 or 2 people that do read this know EXACTLY where I am and which cities I'm talking about.
I think it's some kind of internet paranoia. This is a public site, so my exact location shouldn't be out there for anyone to see.
And yet what's the point of describing this in detail if it's no-where's-ville?
It'd be like writing a travel book but refusing to name the destinations.
Mad.

Day Twenty Eight

At the entry to the pool I found I'd left my money at home. Found only small change at the bottom of my bag. Meanwhile, another swimmer (a total stranger) arrived at the counter and tried to pay for me. I thanked him and refused. The guy behind the counter meanwhile is saying, don't bother, go ahead. He wouldn't even take my small change because the cash register couldn't handle it.

"I'm here every week," I promised. "I'll pay next weekend."
But he just waved it aside: "It's Sunday."

Such graciousness and lightness. I can't imagine that happening in a capital city, like the capital city I recently lived in.

Day Twenty Seven

Skink Day.

I've alarmed a half a dozen really pretty skinks this morning, sunning themselves on rocks, garden edges, even one on the footpath. They slither expertly into crevices when I walk past.

Inadvertently fed live animals to my cat for breakfast, when I saw the first 2 moths ever since arriving here. I know how much cat loves to play with them, and thought I was handing her a toy when I brushed them down to her from up high; but she was less interested in playing than just eating them straightaway. My vaguely Buddhist sympathisings struggle momentarily with what I've just done.

I've heard them plenty of times but tonight I see for the first time one of the possums who live in our palm trees.

Day Twenty Six

My friend returned from a year and a half with MSF in Africa, working hard, and living minimally. She returned home reluctant to deal with her personal belongings that had been in storage the entire time. "I just don’t want any stuff".
Sitting in my comfy home on my nice sofa, surrounded by the things I'd collected and decorated my apartment with, I couldn't relate. But when I then put all that stuff away in boxes, and was then faced with unpacking it all again in a new place, I found I would have preferred to just throw most of it away. 50% of it is necessary or vaguely functional at the most. The rest is just comforting. Or potentially useful maybe one day in the future - for some imagined unique situation. I sent unpacked boxes into storage, stacked a few up in the corner of the study. And I don't want to buy anything new or own anything more than I already have. I want to start using it up and throwing it away.

Ironically, since moving here I've had to buy new stuff. But only basics that this rental apartment failed to provide.
Happiness is a clean new toilet seat, a toilet roll holder, a shower curtain to keep the water off things that shouldn't be wet, a shower head that actually works, a light bulb so I can see inside the fridge at night, and thermal curtains for the fiercest western sun I've ever had to squint and sweat into.

Day Twenty Five

A dream.
I'm unfamiliar with the roads and traffic, so I made a botched attempt at crossing.
I make it halfway across to the centre line, but am looking the wrong way.
Just as a bus or truck comes up from my blindside, and is about to flatten me I wake up, feeling shocked.

Day Twenty Three

I travelled 950km back to my old home town for a couple of days, the source of the grains of sand. 950km further from the equator, closer to the pole. So I packed jumpers and winter clothes, prepared for a cold I'm no longer used too. But it didn't feel cold. I didn't notice the weather. Instead this evening, back in my new home town, I broke out in a sweat on a short walk to the supermarket, overdressed and noticed how exceptionally warm it was.

Day Twenty

There are grains of Bondi sand in the lid of my blockout.
Happy memories.

Day Nineteen

Late night shopping in the city and I am again frustrated by the lack of bike racks in the mall. It's so odd to ride in a city that's so obviously bicycle friendly - with clearly marked bike paths along the major streets and an official bicentennial bikeway along the entire river - only to face the opposite in the pedestrian area. There's just nowhere to chain it up. Seems the city council isn't interested in making life easy for us once we get OFF our bikes. I acknowledge that this area is devoted to pedestrians only - no vehicles of any kind - but wouldn't you then put bike racks at the periphery? There are a couple of car parking stations nearby, so they thought about the motorists. I walk my bike beside me thru the crowds, looking around lost and feeling foolish, wondering where I'm going to dump the thing, hyper-aware of one bit of important local knowledge I lack. And I have a renewed gratitude to and respect for the local bike group in the shire in which I used to live. They lobbied for bike racks in the pedestrian mall. I might have taken those conveniences a bit for granted.

Day Eighteen

I was told late night shopping was Thursday; same as what I'm used to.
Imagine my surprise to find all the shops in the city closed. The suburbs have late night Thursday shopping, but in the City it's Friday night. Odd. And confusing to a newcomer. Maybe they hope to catch a whole lot of drunken impulse buys. Friday night's usually the drinks after work night. It seems to be a habit to crack open the beers at 4.30 every Friday in my office, for example.

Day Seventeen

It feels like I've been here for months.

Day Sixteen

I step outside to take a phone call and see:
Wild turkeys have wandered down from the nearby mountains and are poking around the gardens in the front of the office.

Day Fifteen

I may have moved about 1000 KM north, but this still isn't the Tropics. I officially wore a jumper around the house tonight.

Day Fourteen

1. I wake and hear church bells and like it. Reminds me of Europe.

2. Both doors of my odd little wall cupboards in the living room are open, symmetrically. Odd. I remember closing them. Did the cat have a poke around last night? I close them again.
It's the first bout of restless weather I've had here. The rain's stopped, but the palms are hissing and rattling outside in the random cold gusts. Then another rustle, a sigh of wind, and calmly, in silence, just like in a scary movie, both doors in unison open themselves. The wind must be working thru the veins and crevices of this light old timber building.

3. There's a blob on my ceiling and I think "Good! A moth for the cat to play with. She will be pleased." Up close however, the scrunched up thing looks less like a moth, less pleasant. So I use the cup and piece of cardboard technique. Inside the cup is a small but nasty looking green spider I've never seen before and it goes straight out the bathroom window. Sorry cat. Not taking any chances.

Day Thirteen

1. Huge black crows clunk their toenails on the corrugated iron roof of my flat, and the one opposite. Their black feathers have an amazing opalescent deep blue sheen in the afternoon sun.

2. A thunderstorm compiles at sunset. The sky is a three dimensional gradient from cool blue sky in the east to dirty brown and warm orange textured storm clouds in the west. The colours of the building glow with a never before seen orange-yellow luminosity. The sheeny glazing of a new modern block of flats reflects mirror walls of Bright blue grey. Then the rain. A strange, unfamiliar thing. It's as if I've not seen rain like this for years. Big fat heavy and thick. The umbrella only keeps my head and shoulders dry and I need galoshes to wade across the rivers gushing in every gutter and kerb. My front path and steps have become a cascading water-feature. As if a landscaper had planned it that way.

Day Twelve

1. Beware the shiny, new model ute. The driver might be aggressive, short tempered, impatient, and will rev loudly and take off too fast at lights.

2. The tap water's slightly brownish. However I've been drinking for a couple of weeks with no apparent bad effects.

3. Tropical sounding birds make unfamiliar signs outside my window, day and night at random. One day I'll ask a local what all the different noises are. I do know and recognise the possum sounds - the running thru the trees, the coughing.

Day Eleven

When experimenting with new yoga schools in a strange town, it's best to find out first what style it is. Doing a vastly different style to what you expect is a fantastic exercise in mental discipline; in accepting things for what they are without drawing comparisons. After winning that little battle over my mind, I came out of the class very relaxed.

During class there was a intermittent cheeping noise, very loud in the great acoustics of the huge curved ceiling and the silence of our class. It sounded like some slightly exotic tropical bird but somehow I knew it was a gecko. Even tho it's such a big, unexpected sound for such a small lizard. But there it was, some bit of random info stored unconsciously in my brain from I don't know when or where: The weird, unlikely call of the gecko.

Day Ten

1. I do a long, intense day in the office, after work I make it to dance class (just) and I'm home with takeaway by 7.30pm.
Life's timeshifted here. I'm having some kind of jetlag.

2. I find my dance shoes that have been lost since I packed everything up a couple of weeks ago. Everything seems to turn up eventually.

Day Nine

There is no sushi train in this city. This day is not an adventure. It's just a long hard day of work. I discover that the traffic lights take a long time to change, that the supermarket in the CBD really is as awful as my colleague said it was, and that the large areas of bicycle friendliness are countered by other areas of extreme unfriendliness. (In other words, the type of things that you live with for so long in your hometown, that you can come to accept and ignore - a combination of domestic blindness and learning to work around it.) There are some new limitations in my new home town that I have to learn to work around - such as the apparent lack of bike racks in or anywhere near the pedestrian mall in which bikes are banned.

'The honeymoon's over' as they say.

Day Eight

1. Yesterday my friend said I'd see a lot of geckos here, in Summer. This evening a little gecko ran across my letterbox, and a large one across my living room wall. The cat was excited. There's a dearth of moths and bugs here and it's the first bit of wildlife she's had to play with since we moved. Then she was confused and disappointed when the gecko moved with speed and disappeared forever into a crevice.

2. My internet service provider informs me they won't be connecting me today afterall. I remain offline and must wait at least another week.

Day Seven

1. I'm at The Valley Pool humming Frank Zappa's 'Valley Girl' running backwards and forward like a side-show plate spinner between the time-controlled shower taps trying to keep at least 2 showers on at once to because for some reason it's the only way to make the water come out hot enough to wash my hair under. I remember my recent swim and Sydney, and notice the signage in this particular public swimming pool change room is error free of and wants no correction. Several of the signs refer to Level 6 water restrictions and responsibiy limiting our showers to under 2 mins.

2. On my way out of the pool I find the pen I lost yesterday.

Day Six

1. My local pool is about 5 minutes ride from home. The staff are really friendly. The water's clean and the perfect temperature. I swim outdoors in fresh air and sunshine, in a lane all to myself.

2. There's a big line-up outside my local café. It's obviously a popular destination.

Day Five

1. I find my ring in the bottom of my backpack.

2. I finally take a minute to stop and photograph my scenic commute to send to my friends. Of course, today only, there are clouds in the normally clean blue sky.

Day Four

1. I lose my bike computer in the morning.
I find it in the afternoon.

2. I lose my ring.

3. On my way home from work, I nearly run over a pair of possums tussling on the bike path in the botanic gardens.

Day Three

1. On my way home from work a mother possum with a baby clinging to its back, runs across the path in front of me. Further along, an ibis is hanging out on the path.

2. My local supermarket, bigger and shinier than my Sydney one, and with all the same stuff I like to eat, is 2 mins ride from home.

Day Two

My bicycle commute to work turns out to be a very scenic bike and pedestrian path along the edge of the river the entire way. I encounter just one car in the back streets as I'm leaving my apartment.
It takes me 25 minutes because I'm not familiar with it and am riding comfortably, taking it all in.
Over the week I'll get it down to under 20 mins - eventually 15.

The first 28 days in my new home

Day One

1. We must queue for a table at my local café, with good reason. The food is excellent, the staff are great and I'm told the coffee is too.
2. The food at the Indian Restaurant across the road from my apartment is delicious. Tomorrow a colleague will smile widely and tell me it's the best Indian in the whole city.

Exersize 35

How to make yourself attractive to the opposite sex.

1. Tell them you're leaving town. For good.
It's fairly slap-yourself-on-the-forehead obvious, now I think about it. God. Sailors and travelling salesmen have known this forever. It's the perfect commitment-free, no danger of follow-up, one night stand. Guaranteed you won't have to see them again, or run into them at some future social gathering, or even in the street, and they can't stalk you (except by phone, email, facebook). Also, there's that undefinable sense of - not recklessness necessarily - but letting go, in the one who's leaving, open to change, preparing for a new adventure. They're leaving all current ties and responsibilities. Ever the optimist, the opposite sex might choose to imagine an untethered holiday atmosphere about the nearly departed and read it as a certain openness and accessibility.

So I'm just days away from putting everything I own in a truck and heading 950km north, where I can feasibly reinvent myself and suddenly I'm faced with several offers to end the longest drought in my life. So THAT'S what I've been doing wrong all year. I've been TOO AVAILABLE. (Slaps self on forehead.)