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.