Renoire

I have just walked
under a mist of
perfume.

When we choose a pineapple, we choose it almost entirely by two sensors, smell and touch. We run our hands over it, seeking out softspots, bruises and imperfections. We weigh it’s ripeness in the palm of our hands. We determine the tenderness of it’s inner flesh by tweaking a leaf from it’s crown. When we cut it open we are greeted with sun from within and the fragrance of it, faint until now, overwelms you completely.

And when you bite into it, it faintly, sweetly, painfully, stings your lips and the juice runs down your chin.

And that is how the pineapple is sensual.

playing charades with the clouds

Tonight I played charades with the clouds.
They made hearts in the sky
and I said “I’ve been doing that for years
and it’s never done me any good”.

Then I lay down in the sand to make a
sand angel and the clouds said “Angels have
been greatly misrepresented over the years”.

And then the clouds consulted one another and
gathered around and made
a knight with jousting stick, ready to win, with the moon
swimming behind him, and I said “Fighting never solved a thing”

“Oh well”, said the clouds when i played charades with the clouds
“We can’t help you then. But let us try just one last thing…”

And they showed me.

Maroubra whale

on it’s shores, and staring from my balcony just watching it. Colin Thiele (who gave us Gloop the Bunyip) wrote a short story I read many years ago about the ocean having a ledger – as it gives, it also takes away. I like thinking about it that way. Barker also writes a lot about the ocean, it’s a recurring theme of his that there is a dream sea that you visit twice in your life; once the first night you lie with the one you love and the second in the moments before death. He’s named it Quiddity. The absolutely truth and whatness of it all.  An amazing word in it’s own right.

Ostensibly, this time of the year, I am staring at the ocean to find a whale. Sometimes there isn’t one there. I do see other things, though. Your eyes adjust, and what was seconds ago a calm blue is revealed to be not so calm after all: there are waves and squalls and creatures moving just below the surface. When I am out on a boat (I have conquered sea sickness using mind over matter. It took me a while, and a few wretched days out, but I can do it now. I just need to watch for the warning signs: everything starts to look as if it’s been bevelled, I need to start giving myself a good talking to and remind myself that it’s all to do with my middle ear), and we are chasing dolphins or pilot whales or fish, I usually end up the spotter, because I can see what the others can’t because they are old salties, and their eyes don’t believe any more the swirl of a marlin sail, a seal chasing the lures.

These days I have yet another reason to love the ocean. It’s begun to represent a connection, between us all. I speak secrets from it’s shores, and let the wind carry them where they will. I do that regularly. And these days, when I’m standing on my balcony I send thoughts and smiles across the ocean, trusting the salt and the wind and the clouds and the spray to deliver it to where it is supposed to go, intact, and multiplied a hundred fold by the elements.

And I guess, that is part the quiddity of all of us.

Brother: did you get my message about my teeth?

Cheri: yes that sucks i’m sorry for that. what’s happening

Brother: just fuckin silly
i’ve been to the dentist, and it’s sealed, will go in for the measure up on the 3rd
where they’ll figure out if it’s a composite, veneer or crown
i just got private and they’ve waived on dental and optical and stuff
the dentist reckons they can split the bill and chuck alot of it on general to reduce the out of pocket if it goes crown, it’ll still cost 1400 for one + anything else, and who knows for the other
might have to hit the folks up for a loan 

Cheri: O no!

Brother: what can ya do ? 
it’s all cool, no pain, just stupid

Cheri: mum was wondering if you got into a fight 

Brother: nooooo
i’ll tell you what happened
don’t tell her but

Cheri: ok tell me.

Brother: we were playing darts
and i was losing very badly

Cheri: k

Brother: it got to a dack run, and i couldn’t not do it

Cheri: oh no

Brother: so i dropped my jeans, and hopped around the room
i got all tangled up and tripped
went face first into the bar

Cheri: laughing.

Brother: i broke my left front tooth half off, smashed the back of the front right, fractured my nose and bent my glasses 
then, colin and ben picked me up to take me into the bathroom and clean me up and i passed out and pissed myself
they had to call an ambulance 
but i managed to slip a terrible mum joke in

Cheri: what was the joke

Brother: ah they said something like ‘you’re going to be sore in the morning’ and i said, ‘your mum’s going to be sore in the morning’

did mum actually think i was in a fight  ?

Cheri: no she didn’t think you were
i’m sure she’d rather find you were in a fight
than you know like
crashing face first into a bar with your pants down

Brother: i think she would be proud of me for honouring my word

It simply couldn’t have been mine.

I was simultaneously split into a million bemused shards and also wholer than I had been for some time. I remember at university during the heady days of social and substance exploration -

- the night I wandered away from the camp fire out in the bush where there was nothing but sky and stars and fire.The sky turned white. The stars burnt black. It was a negative of myself there, far below and insignificant on earth but more positive than ever and it was then I realised that at once I was one and many like my epiphany of today.

However corporate life and responsibility over the following decade had beaten it out of me and then you reminded me and bought it into my here and now.

And now when I think back to that long ago girl who stood beneath a snow white sky with stars burning black holes in it’s veneer, barefooted and wild haired I no longer mourn the losing of her but rejoice in her return.

Last night ended up at Newtown – the Newtown Hotel to be precise. It’s gone from fun gay bar to full on awesome down-n-dirty cocktail bar – accidentally because they don’t want to spend the dosh  remodelling, so they stripped the walls, painted it white and let people graffiti it. They also do a damn good mojito too.

A heart on my back

test stuff