The storm

Mother Nature kicked our arse yesterday. When I came out of my SAP training class just after 3pm, the sky sagged toward earth, so heavy there was almost a wheeze in the air.
The clouds were dark and the air was beyond humid. It was damp. But still we doubted whether the storm would finally break.

It did.

The power went out at work around 4pm, and we stood pressed to the windows, watching lightning rent the sky as winds whipped trees about and the hail pelted all. By the time we made it out to the carpark, we were ankle deep in water (and I blessed this part of the world again, for being so clean!) and parts of Cambridge Street were properly flooded.

The first wave of the storm passed and there was a misleading calm, when the sun came out and Perth's skyscrapers glimmered so beautifully under a massive rainbow. I had power at home, and took the veal out of the fridge, ready to cook when the power blew. So I had a can of corn kernels and walked from one end of the flat to the other, looking at the different views from the different sides of the house. Perth had disappeared. The cloud was so low and dark, that I couldn't see further than the other side of the street.

Thunder cracked. My hands shook as I lit the candles and settled down on the carpet, next to them with Cloudstreet open and my head resting on pillows. My windows rattled and the wind raged and when it subsided, an eerie pale blue light settled over everything.

It's a lesson in humility when you realise that although you have no power, or hot water or the means to cook or heat, you are still so much better off than many others. I was dry, I had light, and I wasn't prey to the elements. And Winton was a marvellous companion.

This morning the carpark is still flooded, and the heavy scent of eucalyptus permiates everything. There may be more rain today, but we're all okay and the day is beautiful.

I thought I'd write a big heavy tirade about confusion and love and rah rah fucking rah... instead, I'll just mention how completely perfect last night was.

After a little swim with Steph in an overchlorinated pool, I had a bit of a drive around Perth by accident ("Ooh, I'll just take this turn off, surely I can get off this road before it becomes the freeway"... er, no) and then G and I went to Brighton beach, where I voiced my wussness for a while, and then plunged (timidly) into the crashing waves with a body board strapped to my wrist.
I haven't felt this unco since my last step aerobics class in high school, but my god it was about 80 million times more fun. I screamed like a maniac and swallowed sea water and when I got home my bathers were chockers with sand. But it was beautiful. The sunset, the water (the wind once out of the water was a little serious) the big Perth night that was (and is) all mine (sometimes I share it).

At home I set to baking and cooking (havasi kifli and carrot and coriander soup).

Tonight it's fried oyster mushrooms with garlic aioli served with hopefully a little less thinkingtoomuch...

How well we know

Fat Yak and cigarettes in a rapidly cooling Perth night. A Perth night that you now love. How bitterly ironic that you could only discover this wonder on your own. Only away from me can you rejoice in the little things and love the different rhythm of life here. (But cricket? Really?)

Was I stifling? Quite possibly, although you say this isn't so.

Our talk was soft and overlong, and today, other than the hangover, I am saddled with the weight of heavy memories, the burden of knowing you too well.

It is the end of summer here. The sun has lost her ferocity and the morning wind that blows is serious. No more balmy caresses, we're heading for beanie weather. Or are we?

It is midday, high noon and bright as breath. Under the canopy, a lacklustre wind flutters crackling leaves as sweat trickles down the back of my knee.

Yet in the photographs it is even hotter.

The women's faces are slightly more defined than the men's, where all you can see is the stern line of the moustache and the beard. On the women it's as if someone had blown ash across the surface, but the features can still be seen. And they sit, men and women in formal rows, with nothing but sky behind them. The ground is so flat it disappears and bodies hover, held aloft by the relentless heat.

Small, ramshackle buildings stand behind them in some places, in some places they stand in front of mine entrances. Faded now, that life looks fresh and brand new then...it was the frontier, speckled with hardship and lived under a blazing sun. All black and white photos evoke this longing in me. This feeling that things were so unique then. Less cliche and bullshit. Of course this may not be the case, but at the very least we were all more beautiful when we were young...

This red dust wouldn't be visible in black and white. Or the contrast with the aching colour of the sky. Life lived in technicolour.

The brisk morning wind has blown sunrise into today

More suburbia

There is a Hills Hoist in the backyard of the house M has just found. Less flashy than the others, yet this one is in Duncraig too, and features an enormous back yard - plenty of space for teenager retreats and any lawnmowing fanaticists to indulge.

The image of this house utterly put me in mind of 37 Colorado Drive. In a good way.
Remembering those pastel Geelong afternoons, everything an even shade of grey until the clouds rolled in, or the sun exploded through for a few minutes. Those were afternoons when I didn't have work and money on my mind (I hardly remember what those days feel like, but still) and I curled on our couch, often with cat in tow and gas fire burning, and read book after book.

Outside suburbia breathed, the city many kilometres away and even the nearest shop a good 15 minute walk away. Behind the house, though not directly, loomed ... and now i don't remember the name of the hill... the one with the road running up to Anakie, where Chanel college used to be. The big hill with the big powerlines, crackling static in the gathering dusk.
It was home before I truly realised what a big thing that is.

There are only ten or so photos online of this house, and who knows if M will buy it at all, or whether or not I will move there if he does, but seeing such a typical (at least for me) home, with low ceilings and wide rooms, an enormous backyard and a sunny kitchen looking out on it. Two parts comfort, one part longing...

Mistake

Yes it was - picking up a wheelbarrowful of theatre and opera tickets from the post office and then noticing that Serendipity Books was 'just over there' ... I should have just returned to the office. Should have. Didn't.

I have now a book about Marble Bar - the whole book, all about life in Marble Bar. There was also an exquisite Graves "The Greek Myths" Folio society edition, but I managed to leave that there. There was Browning and Rosetti and aaaarrrgghhhh... I will need a better paying job if I am to become a regular visitor.

Looking at pictures on facebook today, I realised why people use the term 'glowing' about women who are pregnant. There was a photo of MM and her Bump, and something has infused her face, some ...for want of a better word...glow. Simply beautiful. And somehow more adult.


The weekend passed in a flurry of not very much at all.
M took me to a beautiful dinner in Freo (excellent steak) where we had long conversations and some fabulous shiraz. We drove to Monument Hill afterwards, because what's a night in Freo without seeing the cranes... it reminded me of the first giddy night we went there and he kissed me and I completely lost my head.

On Saturday we had a day of errands and cleaning planned, but shortly after we'd washed the Land Cruiser, M got the news that the house had sold. So instead of running around, there was champagne and cigars (I know, what?) and much excitement.
We were invited to a barbecue in the evening, Swanbourne no less, and by the end of the night I was dancing with a mannequin - having moved from the bubbles to the vanilla vodka.

I started Sunday with "I will never drink again" and then we spent the day driving from open house to open house, M seeking out bigger and better garages, me ogling the beautiful kitchens. One or two serious contenders but even just the looking was interesting. Travels in suburbia.

Then on the way home, when we went to Welshpool to drop off the company car and drive home in mine, Norma decided enough was enough and her battery made an awful end-of-the-road coughing sound and wouldn't budge again. We sped to B & P's, borrowed a started cable, went back, now she started, so M drove to four different petrol stations until he found the right kind of battery (all this at 9pm) and then put the battery in when we got home.

Summer appears to be over. Okay, it might be 31 degrees outside, but the morning was positively brisk, and started much later in terms of sunrise, which washed glorious hues over the tree in front of the balcony. And I think, a few short months, and the flame trees will be in bloom again, and here I am, full circle yet so much has changed.

The bloody Piano Teacher

That's two hours of my life I'll never get back.

The sweetest thing connected with that film is when I borrowed it from Blockbuster in Wembley, and the pimply young guy at the counter looked at it strangely, looked at me and said "This is one with subtitles...is that okay?" I could have kissed him.

But the film itself- I dunno, am I becoming a prude, or boring or lacking critical thought (the latter quite possibly)...but it felt gratuitous...not to the extent of Hole in My heart, but gratuitous all the same. I failed to feel a smidge of sympathy for the woman at all and the final scene? Give me a break...The music was perhaps the only redeeming feature and the earnestness of the young seducer. Isabelle Huppert played unbelievably well, I just thought the story was unbearable (and not in a challenging 'good' way).

It did however, feel remarkably good to make my own bad movie choices, without explaining myself to anyone. Maybe I should try and avoid French films for a while, and get back into the Spanish ones. Gratuitous sex in those too, but with vastly better looking people. Oh Gael Garcia Bernal...hmmm...

While we're on the subject of name-dropping, I bought tickets to see Waiting for Godot at His Maj starring Sir Ian McKellen. Score! See, Perth is practically London in terms of culture.

New man at body pump this morning. With an unathletic name like Bill I thought he'd be a walk in the park. How wrong I was...

My breakfast tomato had the explosions of the sun inside its skin...

Drunk texting

Receiving a not at all incriminating drunk text the other night got me thinking about drunk texting in general, and the recent drought of drunk texting in my life in particular.

We used to relish drunk texting and drunk phone calls - we somehow managed it on alternate weekends ... you sober, me at the Newport... or me sober and you out somewhere in the wild Melbourne night.
So what changed? Have we stopped drinking? Or were those messages in some way laced with longing that has dissipated, or that we now must, forever, deny?
(And again, in my mind - "You can't repeat the past, old sport")

The CD that arrived recently, with all those old photos - the first summer and ... why subject myself to memories that surge with a power irresistible?



Brighter things:

The snuggled long weekend in Walpole. Tidy clear days out by the ocean, campfire smell as we fall into the tent at dark, waking with the sun, to coffee and the next adventure.
The trip to the winery with B and P- scenes of such cliched and perfect Australiana it made my eyeballs itch.
Trying to sleep on Monday night, while the 26 degree night struggled at the window. It all felt heavy and just a little bit magical.
The text that came at lunchtime today, as I fretted at the bank: "Hianyzol. xxx" and I stood for long seconds, clutching the phone to my chest and grinning like an idiot.

Tonight I have a date with Betty Blue, after some shopping and a bath for Norma. Why do white cars get shat on more than other colours? It's not right...