silver magic ships...

and the colours to my dreams - last night we watched "Searching for Sugarman" and it lifted me into a mood similar to the one I fell into when I first read Hartnett's Wilful Blue. 
I was transported momentarily to sitting at the Luna on SX, watching Candy, dreaming of that kind of intensity. The damaging kind. 
And how long it has taken to learn that I can live without the damage. Nay flourish. 

I spoke to Bud today, and I am getting used to this changed scenario. And I'm excited about Little Bud, and I'm scared. But mostly excited. And I love her so much. 

Our home is now properly our home, and most vestiges of the feral housemate have been domes-tossed out. We had an amazing celebratory dinner last night, with bubbles in an ice bucket and finally I feel like I'm easing into a routine. 
Some aspects are the old routine, from 2010, when Craigie gym was my refuge, my pass-the-time until M came home. I still love going there, but it's more for the endorphin rush that brings me back home. 

I am learning the train, and the weirdos and their schedules (so I can avoid them) and soon I will have a navy blue bike to ride to work and can avoid public transport altogether. 

Maria asked me for some recommendations of contemporary poetry to give to her son who is edging into year 11, and arty and sensitive but still a teenage boy. I was honoured that she asked me, so I selected a short collection: Dawe, Henri, McGough, Kocott and then I gave her my copy of Geoff Lemon's sunblind, because he's also a sports reporter - which somehow makes him more blokey, no? Late in the afternoon when dashboard meetings, and signoffs had leached everyone's energy, I caught her leafing through the start of the book - to read his poem: How to write a love letter. 

the lightning just keeps silently lighting up the predawn sky - its intensity makes me expect a crackle and snap, but there is no sound.
It has been a long time since I've recorded anything and so much has happened.
Not only is this a new year, but an almost entirely new life. I am writing from the comfort from our shared office in our new shared house in Greenwood. I have a hot mug of Paul, Radio National is on, and Jay and Smokey are safely snoozing in the bedroom.

I am getting re-used to these old/new rhythms of suburbia and nothing signifies my return better than rejoining the gym and seeing all those old instructors. I like this life, I always have, except this time I have the support I didn't have before. Living as a 'unit' as a partnership with similar goals, I tell you, it's a novelty I adore.

J and I survived our first substantial trip together, even if the van did not. The three of us went on the beautiful epic drive across this great brown country. And when we got to the other end we were in Moriac, and had a chance to spend quality time with J's family and get to know them a little more. I surprise myself at how much I miss being close to a functioning family. I have almost come full circle from my own divorced-parented past, to needing that close family feeling. It was a beautiful time spend there.

I also had time to spend with Bud, and whilst this time everything was entirely different (and gearing up to be more and more different) it was still that same sameness that is part of the spine of my soul. She taught me, in those three days in the Grampians, that sometimes it's ok to do nothing and sit and read and talk, even if there's a mountain range behind us, aching to be climbed.

"What do you want to do?"
      "Sit here and be bored with you"

Remember?

It wasn't the wild adventure of our Italian trip, and it wasn't the booze soaked hilarity of our previous catch ups, but it centred me as we grow into our increasingly adult relationships.

And I am getting more adult, I think. I handled a recent situation at work with more controlled maturity than I thought I possessed; though at the same time I had a few dozen too many ales last Saturday and behaved in a way befitting a teen - so not entirely adult, but inching that way.

The marathon now is a distant memory, and those few days on Rotto were a real turning point in some ways. For one, I got the magic job that I have been doing now for close to 18 months, then I ran a very un-brisk 42.195 kilometres with the support of some very dear people, including a very nascent bump I refer to as Little Bud. And on that Sunday after the 'race', Jay took me to a less-raucous pub on the island and suggested I move in with him in February.

It is well into February now, and I have moved, leaving the cocoon of the Blackcurrants  behind. And I am making our own nest here, and loving small details - like creating my own spaces in the kitchen, relishing a newly clean window, rearranging shelves, planning menus, developing a routine again. These are happy, if tiring days.

And now the thunder comes - rolling across the sky in front of the window - rending the morning open as the six o'clock news comes on the radio.