You Must Learn

A default assumption of mine is that I know what's going on in my head. Any particular malaise, energy, flavour that comes on, I can usually attribute. That article I read connected to that ad I saw connects with a comment I misheard. Hopes were deflated. A small triumph. The tea was good. It's been a roiling year.

As such, I don't keep tabs on this assumption, and as a result there are periods such as the here and now, in which my lapse in attention has gone on so long that I've only just noticed these turbulent moods and quick rages and honestly can't trace the roots.

I was very depressed late last year. Circumstances changed, and I don't know that the depression went away, so much as I became distracted by those changed circumstances. When my adaptation was sufficient to settle, I moved to Sydney and smashed my New Circumstances KPI right through the desk.

There's nothing familiar here. I've had to learn my way around a new city, one which I have no sense of geography for. I've no idea where what suburbs are located in Sydney. A new home which means learning the home necessities of where the nearest supermarket is, what's available where and when, what can't be found within walking distance, when not to go out the front door. A new climate; fuck subtropical weather patterns fucking what. A new home, I mean, learning how to close the shower door without smashing it, not to step on the loose stones, getting used to the sound of the buses, where's the best place to put the mugs. A new job which means learning absolutely everything from the ground up in a field I've never worked in or taken personal interest in while trying to balance my RSI with being able to sleep at night and still do my own thing.

The brain is a sponge, and it soaks up information! Right?

The sponge is full.

When your whole environment is an exercise in learning there is no fallow time, nor any fallow space. It's not a question of balancing things so I don't get overwhelmed; I am already overwhelmed and all that's left is for me to manage that.

Social media. Gone. Done. Might dip my toe in various sites for a minute a day, but that's all. Some stimulation had to go, and what time I spend online is one of the few things I have control over, so it went. Without announcement, and without planning. It happened before I was conscious of it. The knock on being I'm finding the idea of anything social to be daunting right now. If something is close to home I can be brave, because I know I have a bolt hole. But if it's further than walking distance I start to get a little wild-eyed and teeth-bared.

As always, I'm frustrated by the conditions imposed by my mind, the limitations that attempting to retaining some form of stability places upon my activities, and the apologies I owe to people because of this.

But then, the tired and far-seeing part of me that sometimes almost sounds wise is aware that this, too, is but a distraction. When I've learned what I need to know, there'll be nothing left but the wet wool blanket.




Poppy just dropped from my head to the keyboard and is now attacking my fingers while I type. The sombre and serious mood evoked by this topic has now been shat on. Three times already. Little fucker I AM TRYING TO TYPT GIVE ME MY FINGERS BACK wait no, she doesn't want to fight she is demanding head scritches.

I CANNOT BE EXPECTED TO WORK UNDER THESE CONDITIONS ow that one hurt!

I guess it's not all bad, heey.

s

(That last 's' is from Poppy.)

The Starbucks Throwback Machine

I've time to spend before an appointment, cannot remember which of the cafés around don't do annoyingly bitter chai lattés and without feeling to much guilt head to the nearest Starbucks. They are globally reliable in the chai latté department, which I have researched and tested myself. 

It's Melbourne. It's winter. 

And as soon as I walk through those doors the smell of hot milk and waiting coffee,  and barista patter and easy music echoing from tiles and couches, these things dive into my memories and I'm standing in New York, Krakow, Prague, Nuremberg, Manchester, Glasgow, Inverness. I'm standing in transit lounges in countries I never properly entered. I'm standing in a country that is not my home. 

Newness is one of the biggest motivators for travel.  Learn. Experience. Try. This can be fatiguing, day after day. Sometimes you don't want an adventure; sometimes you just want a cup of tea. 

An evil corporate hegemony it may be, but a familiar sanctuary when nothing else is, it also is. 

That brief nostalgic thrill made my heart skip. A remembered swell of relief on entering. The smallest and briefest of time machines. 

Poland: What They Don't Tell You

When you walk into a coffee shop in Poland, and you order a chai latte in Poland, what you get in Poland, is not what you expect in Poland. You get a latte in Poland, which happens to have chai in it.

If you are not a coffee drinker, this can be surprisingly disappointing.

Also, the strangers on the street are far more friendly and helpful than people in information booths.

Now you are prepared for Poland.

This information based off a day spent in Krakow and less than 12 hours spent in Warsaw.

Tuesday in Shanghai

"Dance like no one is watching."

I've always liked this sentiment, although of late the internet has turned it into some pithy Hallmark ideal meant to express our inner butterflies or some such. At any rate, I never dance like this. I'm either dancing like everyone is staring at me and I'm dreadfully uncomfortable with it, or I'm dancing like I Do Not Give A Fuck, which is exactly what I did in the Melbourne International Airport baggage hall, next to carousel 7, while we waited for our backpacks to appear amid the suitcases and boxes. It's the exuberance that comes from finishing 28 hours of flying and 1 and a half years abroad. It's the only home-coming dance that matters. (Internal soundtrack provided by Beyoncé and All the Single Ladies.)

Being in this room, at this desk, surrounded by these things, is surreal and bemusing. All these things. I remember each item, but the placement surprises me. Why is there half a bottle of cooking sake on my bookshelf? Why do I have so many boxes of stuff? All these clothes, what are they for? Do I really need these stacks of paper on my desk? I don't remember where these figurines came from. This box is a mystery. The contents of these drawers are unfamiliar.

This is the room of another person, yet I'm comfortable in it, and I'm comfortable using it, and the soundscape that slipped in the window at night was more home than any of these items.

No one knew what to expect of Sam. How does a dog react when his human, who has moved in and out of his home sporadically during his life, is missing for a year and a half? Would he even recognise me?

He didn't greet me as a stranger, there was no hesitation or trepidation in his approach. He and Sophie were all bounces and leaps and tailwags, as they always are. Yet he was confused, a little unsure. In fact, I'd go as far as to say he was blanking me for most of the day. I'd reach for him and he'd suddenly be distracted by something on the other side of the room that needed his attention immediately. J got more attention out of him than I did. However, when I crashed out and went to collapse on my bed – my bed! – he came with me, curled up beside me, and it was as if the intervening nights apart had never happened. He lunges at possums outside and out of reach and I scratch his belly in the morning.

Noisy mynahs in the eucalypts down the side of the house, being noisy. A flock of cockatoos has taken up residence down in the valley and were absent-mindedly raucous during the evening. A magpie warbled as I stood on the back verandah with a cup of tea in my hand and breathed that home air. The lorikeets morning chorus was slept through and I'm looking forward to the evening session.

I looked down on Australia as we flew over the red centre, which was lines of dunes and dust to the horizon, giving way to fields flattened by generations of ploughing, a lake whose water level was low and yet higher than I expected, and a colour palette that spoke of thirst and dry hearts and a heat-beaten brown I didn't know I could miss. In all the countries we've visited there was a wealth of water beyond our comprehension. Still, I cannot in good conscious waste water. Showers are not for loitering in. Don't flush on a number 1. The grass in the backyard is green, but as patchy as mange. Summer has not been kind.

There's a new fridge in the kitchen. I find I don't know where to look.

Hours spent talking with mum and my brother. Just talking. Just stuff. The internet, for all the damage it does to social dynamics, is a miracle and boon for those people far apart. I have not been out of touch with my people for all this time, yet nothing beats chatting about nothing while doing nothing. It's wonderful what has changed, and what hasn't changed at all.

I think I'm done for now. J has had his fill as well. We've put our bags down with the express intention of not picking them up again for a very long time. Every day for the past couple of months has been the unknown and unfamiliar. Every day learning how to cope with undrinkable tap water, how to best open the window to deal with an over-enthusiastic heater, what sign language is universal when attempting to identify meat at a restaurant, whether beer or wine is cheapest in this country. It's wonderful and confusing and frustrating and hilarious. It's adventuring small and large.

And now we are ready to be where we know the streets and where the best tea and pho is, we can drink the tap water and know what mixers are available and can send a shoutout to meet any number of friends at short notice and we know Melbourne, we know it and we don't have to think about it.

It is strange to be home.

I can't stop smiling.

In a Tube

Something I'm sure every traveler loves doing is wandering into a foreign supermarket and boggling at some of the produces that in this foreign land are commonplace. Having visited Malaysia, Japan, China, Tibet, Nepal, Iceland, Chile, Argentina, USA and Scotland (seriously, Scotland has things in jars that are just wrong), I'm pretty sure I found something in Swede that takes the cake, the platter, and the whole table service.

'Ost' is cheese. Generic cheese. Now, I can understand adding skink - ham - to cheese, as that is a well-loved sandwich combination and when toasted they are clearly two items of food that were meant to be. Bacon too makes sense when added to cheese. Bacon makes sense with nearly everything.

But in a tube?

However. 

But. 

You see.

Räk being prawn. Who the hell puts cheese, generic nothing no name cheese, together with prawns? Only people who have a sense of 'taste' that is clearly a blasphemy against nature, that's who. Only people who are attempting to ruin the very fabric of the universe, that's who.

And who then, you must ask yourself, who then would take this monsterous combination AND STICK IT IN A TUBE?

THE SWEDES, THAT'S WHO.

We're outside of Forsa, near Hudiksvall in Sweden. I don't know how to. We're just sitting here in magic. Distilled essence of wonder. To look at this land is absolution for crimes I didn't know I carried. 

12 hours in Sweden

Café Dox is hidden beneath the Old Town in Stockholm. The open space is cluttered with couches and armchairs, and punctuated by the fluted and fat stone pillars supporting the streets and buildings above. A cozy cave with chandeliers and blankets to ward off the creeping cold. Goulash, tea, and a respite from walking on ice.

The snow held the plane an extra ten mounted in the sky. Out the window the propeller broke glittering lines of ice. Snow on the ground, runway, trucks, terminals. We slept on benches we battled for.

A floor to ceiling window four storeys high let us watch the snow fall, silent and slow, all night.

On our last night in London we bought Tsing Tao beer and steamed bao in Chinatown. The streets were dry and a full of a cold wind which couldn't decide on how cruel it wanted to be. We walked down to Trafalgar Square, because there is something so wonderful about that vast open space so full of sky and surrounded by movement.

We climbed Nelson's Column and sat three tiers high on that grand monument to naval victory. The sun was down and London is luxurious with night lights and colour and light and colour and all double decker red buses weave through that round about, all out of town buses are pulled to that round about. We drank our rice beer and Big Ben donged the quarter hour. Other tourists climbed the lions and we pulled faces in their photos.

Overhead planes cross-hatched the sky.

Interestingly: the Victoria Memorial

Buckingham Palace is, well, yes. It is yet another stately building in a city full of stately buildings. Historians and architects alike may despair my plebeian ignorance and lack of appreciation, but apart from watching the guards stomp back and forth in an attempt not to lose their toes to frostbite, there really wasn't much to behold. The Queen wasn't in so it wasn't though we could pop inside for a cuppa either.

Out the front is, however, the Victoria Memorial, which is a very large ornate and ostentatious affair with statues and 'gifts' from various members of the Commonwealth which look surprisingly similar to communist propaganda monuments from the Soviet era. But with lions.

Presiding over all this is an angel of "unclear entitlement" (according to wikipedia) which could be both Peace and Victory. Wiki also claims that the statue is bronze, not the goldiest gold that ever golded, as I assumed.

The Original Bling, a photo by sirtessa on Flickr.

I mean, seriously, look at it. That's bloody gold, that is. No photo manipulation either. The winter sun did its thing.

Anyway, gold or bronze aside, you will agree that it is very, very shiny. And free of bird poop. 

London is obsessed with bird poop. I've never seen so many spikes placed upon surfaces to deter birds from perching. Spikes everywhere. Everywhere! On railings and fences and window sills and ledges and gutters and street lights and statues and signs and EV.ER.EE.WHERE.

This angel of "unclear entitlement" does not possess spikes. Nor does it wear birds or bird poop. 

We can only assume therefore that Her Majesty the Queen has appointed herself a sniper to sit atop the palace roof and take out the little buggers before they even make landing. If you look to the left wing you'll see a set of stairs on the roof, leading to a raised platform. Perfect position to preserve the splendour of Queen Vicky.

This is perhaps not the most illustrious position to hold, but it would be a sure sight better than being one of the guards standing watch by the front doors, with nothing to do but stomp back and forth in an attempt not to have their fleet fall asleep.  I suspect that the Royal Sniper may have had some practice in the gardens, as there are multiple signs about the place requesting that one does not feed the pelicans. One would be quite willing to oblige however one does find that actually, there are are no pelicans. One must make do feeding the swans, geese, ducks and squirrels instead.

Collecting Homes & Between Them

It's been only four days since leaving Glasgow, and yet it already feels like that moist cold flat happened to someone else in some other lifetime. Four days and three cities and three different sets of wonderful warm people. There was no snow in Glasgow, nor in Manchester, but the land all around is six inches deep in white and the powder growing as our double decker bus hurtled south. There's looking like a tourist, and there's gawping at snow hitting the window, stuck to trees and falling from the sky.

(The majestic turn of wind turbines made mysterious and magical in the blur of snow, against a snow-blank sky and anchored to snow-buried hills.)

Returning to places you do not know intimately yet have established a memory landscape upon is a curious deception. While I know the homes my friends have opened to me well, their city streets are hazy recollections. I have no idea of the layout of Manchester and Nottingham but managed to find tea shops I'd enjoyed in both and enjoy them a second time.

The sharing of such discoveries is a new thing for me, still. Perhaps always. J approves of one tea shop and disapproves of another. We both discover a retro game store and the oldest pub in England. He meets friends I have known so long yet have never met, and seeing that my friends also enjoy my friends is a cockle-warming delight.

This tour through England is something of a long goodbye, which is odd because it is Scotland that was our home. Somewhere between Glasgow and Manchester we crossed the border and it was a moment unnoticed and unmarked. I was probably dozing. Possibly snoring.

(J is intent on the 'hams' of England, having hit Birmingham/Burning Ham and Nottingham/Not A Ham and just now noted Grant Ham and Bing Ham on bus billings as they swing past the window.)

So many people- Wait, let me correct that. So many Scots asked me "Why Scotland?" There isn't really a neat answer to that question. It might have been due to Braveheart, or it might have been due to generic fat fantasy worlds harkening back to the shared delusion of what the Highlands are. Perhaps it was simply because it was far away, full of mist and crags and dark grass and all the things that weren't to be found in my backyard.

Now, knowing I won't set foot in that rich soggy land for some years to come, I can say definitively and certainly, it is because Scotland is my home on the other side of the world.

Bad Movies and Growing Up

Tonight I had my viewing of Showgirls and... I honestly don't know what to say. I can understand how The Room got made; all it needed was one man with determination and too much money. But how the hell did Showgirls make it all the way to cinema release without someone saying, "WE ARE MAKING A TERRIBLE MISTAKE."



It was featured as part of Bad Movie Night, and was spectacularly entertaining. For all the wrong reasons. Once released from the theatre we, a small posse of non-Glaswegians, roamed the streets quoting lines from the film and eventually settling into a pub for some 'old fashioned' cider. In this case 'old fashioned' means 'gross'.

These are the last days of Glasgow. Each night passing is the dying of an era. When we left Edinburgh for the last time, said goodbye to our friends there, the truth of our departure reached the end of its patience, stopped loitering hoping for attention and upped and tapped me on the shoulder. We are leaving. These beautiful people, they won't be a mere bus ride away. We'll be on the other side of the world, and when we say our goodbyes, these goodbyes will have to stand for ages. We won't see these faces for years.

Conversely, we're going home, where our families are, our animal friends, our human friends, all our loves. I'll return to a job that pays more than what both of us were earning here. There is a lot to look forward to.

And yet.

Part of me can't help seeing this as the last gasp. That going home will mean growing up, being responsible, being settled. That maybe I have developed new eyes, and going back to somewhere familiar and known will mean turning that once beloved place into something boring, uninteresting, dull, that maybe I will resent the place, yearn for elsewhere, and as such lose that precious sense of home I've come to treasure. Part of me worries that because of this I'll start being blind to wonder and forget to seek the delight in ordinary things.

There is no way around such flitty demons other than to build a fortress out of memories and incredulity. There are nights yet to come in which to roam Glasgow, stomp the ice growing in puddles and cry 'ewww!' at the puddles which don't hold enough water to freeze.

Glasgow hasn't always been kind to us, yet has been nothing but forthcoming about giving us stories to tell.

The Irrelevance of History

We're sitting in The Kenilworth in Edinburgh, a traditional pub with a ridiculous variety of whiskeys available. On the skirting around the bar island the fact that the building is dated form 1789 is written in a neat calligraphy in gold paint on dark varnished wood.

The first encampment establishing Australia as a penal colony of the British Empire happened on 26 January 1788. Thousands of years of Aboriginal culture carpeted over just like that. That is the Australia of today. 225 years old.

It is a surreal thing to have a pint and a pie in a place that is older than the nation you grew up in, especially when you have memories of the bi-centennial celebrations of 1988, of a school assembly in primary school, being tasked to make vaguely nationalistic posters and not entirely understanding why this particular date was so important, why you were given a special medal commemorating the anniversary, because at 7 years old you do not yet have a sense of time, of age, as at 7 years old you have not stood on the Great Wall of China, walked the streets of Edo, stood in the Cave of Hands, hid from a squall beneath Stonehenge, or come to understand how much you can learn in 10 years and how stupid you were 10 years ago.

Moments like these happen have happened over and over the past year. London was overwhelming. It seemed every building, every street corner, ever mail box had a little plaque commemorating this or noting that. The history of the place was inescapable, and so deep as to drown us all. How can anyone go about their everyday lives when there are tombs in the footpath? How are you supposed to pop down the store for a pint of milk when the building is advertising the fact that it was rebuilt after a zeppelin raid during the war? How can you do anything when you are surrounded by history which demands your attention and respect?

 I guess you just carry on, as everyone else here appears to be doing.

(Aside: Glasgow has shifted my sliding scale on what I consider eye candy, and whoa, there are so many pretty things walking around Edinburgh I'm getting whiplash. J is giving me a lot of shit for flirting with the bartender.)

Punctuation in a Lifetime: 2012

This time last year I was in Berlin, bewildered and bemused by the incessant fireworks lit in the streets, shooting into the side of buildings, falling and firing at pedestrians, people with handguns firing blank bullets at cars driving past. Although I've always travelled alone, at this point I was lonely, I was exhausted, and facing nothing but uncertainty in my future.

2012 played out as I knew it would, in that nothing turned out as I expected. I've lived in amazing places and shit places simultaneously. Ullapool is such a sanctuary and haven of beautiful wilderness, of birds and flowers and the Arctic wind, but the shared housing that came with the job was not...amazing. Glasgow has ridiculous amounts of cheek and character, but this flat in Calton is bloody horrid.

I've met extraordinary people who have surprised me in both their kindness and the fact that I genuinely desire their company. They're in distant places, in distant countries, and I miss them and prize their presence in my life, however fleeting.

I've worked a shit job - if you prize the use of your arms, don't be a cleaner. I've worked brilliant jobs - freelance editing is wonderful and ghastly, contracting for a publishing house is confidence boosting and I just love reading. I've worked no job at all - despite six years as a public servant in a secure environment no one wants to touch me, not even for filing. Sadly, this does not make my resumé any more impressive.

I've not seen nearly as much of Scotland as I would like. Failing to break into temp work means no travel, no weekend flights to Barcelona, no drives along the west coast. I have explored St Kilda, however, and sailed through the Hebrides on a beautiful tall ship. I have roamed the Faroe Islands, and returned to that most breath-taking country Iceland and enjoyed days and days of live music.

I started the 365 project, and have not taken a photo every day. I did not expect to, and am surprised at what I managed to produce. When this entry is finished I will walk into Glasgow with my camera, and the last photos of 2012 will be taken.

I started writing again. This is perhaps the only thing I wanted of this year.

It cannot be denied that the largest, the most meaningful and profound change to have occurred in my life in the past year has been the presence of J. Have I ever told you of my forecasting? When looking into the future, I have always pictured myself alone. Not sad or bitter, simply flying solo, as I have always done. When I was little and assumed that getting married and having children was inevitable, I would try to picture this future, and in all such imaginings the woman with the husband and children was not me (she was white and had a perm for starters). Even when I was engaged this vision did not change, which should have tipped me off sooner. I kidnapped J, and J kidnapped me, and suddenly we have become a two-headed monster. To find that when I look into the future I can see the two of us getting old and remaining young together is a shock, is still a shock, is something worth struggling and fighting to keep.

Right now, I'm full; of love, excitement and hope. The first quarter of 2013 will be full of adventures and explorations with my partner in crime in places neither of us have ever been before. Then we'll be home, and I know now that yes, Melbourne is my home, my family and friends are my home, gumtrees and magpies are my home. There are babies to meet, weddings to attend, people to hug, and oh yes, future travel plans to be made.

There is so much to look forward to, and there is so much to dance about right here and now.

The sun keeps rising, and I keep breathing, and these terrible, wonderful things drag us on.

<3

First Snow in Glasgow

Dignity? OH THE HUGE MANATEEEEEE

I discovered this half-edited and incomplete sitting open in iMovie. That's the hostel room in Nuremberg, which makes this about a year old.

Ahem.

Well past its use by date, I give you my adventures in the Tiergarten in Nuremberg, Germany.

The Best of Gingers

Glasgow has imported the continental tradition of the Christmas Market. It started in St Enoch Square tonight. Small, but surprising in the quality and diversity of stalls on offer. Our particular discovery of hither unknown treasure is some amazingly incredible delicious non-alcoholic ginger wine, served piping hot and perfect. Two bottles of Papa's Mineral Company also make a variety of cordials, and I'll definitely be going back to pick up a bottle of the Winterberry Cordial, which sounds incredible. Glaswegians can pick up one bottle for £6 or two for £10. Very much recommended.

We also stumbled across "real fake snow!" which "feels cold! TOUCH ME!" which we did touch. And it felt wrong. So wrong. Rubbery and yet slimy without being viscous or sticky. Cold because it had sat on a shelf outside for hours. The sales rep offered to demonstrate the snow - how does one demonstrate snow? it just sits there being snowy, which it was already doing quite well - and pour a little from a vial into J's hand, slightly different consistency. He then added water, at which point the 'snow' IF IT REALLY IS SNOW got its hulk on and promptly tripled in volume, overflowing through J's fingers. The chemical reaction was enough to produce marked heat. "Non-toxic," they assured us. "Perfectly safe. It's some sort of polymer."

Look, to me it looked like exactly the sort of mysterious innocuous substance that turns up in an episode of Doctor Who and is ultimately some sinister mind-control body-morphing world-enslavement goop enabler. That's all I'm saying.

 To cap off a cold and wet stroll through the markets we returned to a small booth selling liquor-enhanced hot chocolates, and did I ever buy a massive thick goopy hot chocolate laced with Baileys, by golly.

 It threw me back to Prague where I spent the beginning of the year walking around without any particular goal other than to turn down as many curious little alleys as possible. There, the selling of hot alcoholic beverages in take-away cups was standard, and I loved it. It's no doubt a mark of my legal imprinting in Australia but walking around with a delicious hot drink that was deliciously spiked with delicious felt deliciously naughty. It also gave a lovely glow to the bitter cold, and kept my hands warm.

ICELAND! Redux

I've loved Iceland from afar my whole, fell in love with Reykjavík and the tiny bit of the wilderness I managed to see last year, and can confirm that the love remains just as strong. This is being typed in Café Babalu, my favourite little nook for a chai latte, amazing carrot cake and stable wifi, and I'm nearly squirming with contentment.

It began before we'd even left Scotland.

Seats 4F and 4D. Are you sure? Are you...wait, let me see the boarding slip. Yeah. Those are our seat numbers...are you sure?

We were bumped up to first class without anyone telling us until we were forced to conclude that there wasn't anywhere else on the plane that we could sit. The headrests had hygiene cloths named after various gods and their titles. J swapped his from Freya to Thor at the suggestion of a fellow passenger. Free food! Massive seats! USB Power! Pillows! Blankets! Leg room! It was weird and bizarre and we never really relaxed as we were waiting for the stewards to tell us they'd found our real seats.

It's a completely different world without the blanket snow. The supermarket was just as perplexing as last time.

PYLSUSINNEP. Sounds like an Egyptian riff on a Lovecraft monster. The Egyptian Sausage Demon. Not sure if it's mayo, mustard or tomato-based. It looks like a bottle of glue, to be honest.

As far as we can tell, this is just chocolate. Not even with a fancy filling. Just chocolate. Except there's a faux Michael Jackson endorsing this chocolate. Draw your own conclusions.

....BUT WHY?!?!??!?!

Arbitrary Periods of Time

Today marks one year exactly since leaving Australia.
Since leaving home.

(Well, it's past midnight in both countries now, so technically yesterday is the anniversary but I haven't slept yet so it's still today, dammit.)

It snuck up on me, amid all the other passages of time that I mark. Two days til Iceland. One month til rent is due. Two months without a job. Two months as a freelance editor. Two months til next year. Minutes until winter arrives. One year and one month until my visa expires. One year since I left.

Birthdays and calendar years are opportunity enough to reflect on the recent past, are they not? Yet I have never had a year like this. I have never been so long without my family and tribe, and that is a strain so deep and subtle our lives are too short a lesson and we will never understand it. At the beginning I was fraught with my own daring, at once empowered and paralysed by the question what have I done? Now I can state exactly what I've done, yet I still don't know the answer.

It is to go a layer deeper. The difference between knowing you are cursed with a ravenous insatiable heart and that the search will dictate your every decision and deny you lasting contentment, and understanding it. I understand now that cities are not enough. That villages are not enough. That perhaps even mountains are not enough.

Somewhen along the way I tangled myself in a fine knot of threads, held by so many kind hands, hands driven by hearts that stay in time with my passing time, despite, perhaps because, of my restlessness. They have forgiven me my constant absence even has I am continually surprised and blessed by their persistent presence.

The world is endless.

The sun keeps rising, and I keep breathing, and these terrible and wonderful things carry me on.

Thank you.

Don't make wishes; make memories.

Wylde Swan 7 Day Voyage Three-quarters of last month's pay, seven day working week, two days to prepare, I don't even know how it happened. The stars aligned. The planets aligned. The earthbones groaned and the flowers moaned and all the winds whispered in their sleeping ears and tilted their dreams 2 degrees toward my future, and oh, I don't believe in fate or the kindness of divine deities, but maybe chance and coincidence and the seasons and salted air have conspired a maelstrom of delight focusing here, in this coastal village, sails and snow and singing.

Ullapool, now Tessa Base Camp

If I walk to the end of the verandah, this is what I can see. In the foreground, beyond the frame of this glimpse, a flock of ducks scabbling lazily as they settle on the grass in the dying light.

The shore is stone. The loch is sea. Dried weeds amid the pebbles. On the steps to the footpath a shattering of mussel and scallop shells, derelict barnacles and crushed mother-of-pearl.

A raised voice echoing around a corner. Such fury and vehemence. Don't you dare. Get back here.

To my left, an empty carpark. Two horses in coats, clopping in tandem across that space between buildings. Whingeing whinny and snort.

For a moment, I believe the supermarket not to stock bananas. For a moment.

There is no wind down by the water. The air is cold, too cold busy itself. The silence surrounding me as I stand in the daffodils is dense with space.