what a weekend...
bicton on Saturday morning for a knife skills class, then a trip to mondo butcher where I was tempted by not only the lamb I was there to buy, but also beef cheeks, duck liver and kangaroo mince.
I am starting to spend more time in the kitchen, which may be detrimental to the size of my arse, but it's doing my soul a whole lot of good.

in the evening I rode to the blackcurrants where Matt fitted Merv with spanking new panniers and we ate a delicious dinner and watched Crocodile Dundee. I left before I was able to fall asleep to the Tour de France. (is there a pattern emerging here?)

This morning I was all ready to catch up with Zan at X-Wray - I sat under the flame trees in that oldest of old memory haunts. And waited. And drank a macchiato and waited. I sent a text, I called her phone. And then, dejected I ordered breakfast.

Afterwards I walked to the market and bought fruit and veg, and was blessed with a block of free goat's feta. I bought spices and coffee and trundled home, picked up some beautiful irises on beaufort street later and then set to cooking up a storm in my compact kitchen.

CG came over for dinner and we grazed through the whole menu.

and now, dishes done and ready for bed, I am sitting in a room with flowers and quiet light, a sleeping cat and familiar pictures. even keel, that's all I want...

i am more peppered with terror than i had thought.
i am walking toward the bus stop in the blinding morning. i see a clear, shiny sphere and my first thought is "it's a jellyfish. on the road. it's a jellyfish?"
it's a glass orb and i put it in my pocket for good luck.

the gross flotsam of humanity is there. i sit, wanting to be invisible but at the same time wanting to be seen, to be seen to be different and then to quickly disappear.

"are you ok?"
a look
"of course you're not ok, love but we just have to ask"

the light outside is so clear and true it's almost ridiculous to be writing winter. I read about Rachmaninoff and Rasputin and Monroe and try and steer my mind in a straight direction.

Noon passes.

I see Mr Parker. He is confident and I am contrite.

When I think it is all over and I am unpunished and ashamed...
"what perfume are you wearing?" ... before he opens the gate

and I think really? Now? this is what you're curious for?
but I smile as I tell him Angel.

I walk along the terrace, tears full behind my eyes and strangely, newly i feel an urge to walk into the cathedral

i write this

sitting in a scant-deserved shaft of light
next to portraits of rampaging chickens
i seek solace
undeserved
in this, the deeply familiar

there are technicolour umbrellas
along the terrace
solitary
bescarved wintermen walk
resolute
along the pavement

i am redeemed
but not satisfied


and now? after an afternoon of whisky, sunshine and love?
i feel able to breathe again. deeply. which is not to say i feel less serious, but i feel open again, like this had to happen to close this chapter properly, completely. and so the new chapter opens.

i walk home half of midnight, listening to the final countdown and i am seriously tempted to fist pump this perfect night.

a wet morning.
taxi to the physio.
a reasonable day at work.

to follow a weekend of no particular wonderfulness, but plenty of wonder.
I slept in on saturday, which not just  means something like 'past seven' ... sat around in the morning drinking coffee, admiring the sunshine creeping over the street. my street. i'm not quite there yet.

am came over mid morning, delivered a power tool (i shit you not) and shared a cup of tea.
the rest of the day passed in house-stuff, then dinner at the 'currants' house. i left before the insidious tour de france watching transported me back to cleaver street times and sleeping on the couch. walking home again, 11ish, under a huge bright moon, no music, just me. it's starting to feel less scary.

sunday dawned sparkly and I rode to the market, met the honey seller, and the fishmonger, my vegetable man with his son serving. It was good to be back. i considered briefly the foolishness of riding to a market so far away, but i know that there are some pieces of my routine that won't bend to change, and shouldn't.

the weekend was capped off by a meeting over the interwebs of three generations of us gyorgy women - always a gift and always a giggle.

this week is a new week. new days, shiny and uncreased.

in the moonlight - no moonshine :)

I behaved today. Social club, cheap beer, early leaving. Felt the twinges of self-burning wallowing woe is me feelings, but I curbed them. I borrowed a volume of Luke Davies' poetry, hopeful for inspiration.
But then I arrived at the Blackcurrant residence, and hopped on the wind trainer, because why not, right? And Nickiy and Matt's normality enveloped me, and I was more than fine.

After a very long (slow service) and expensive dinner at Chapels, we parted ways and I sauntered home. The night is not as bitey as the last few have been, my coat was comfort around my shoulders and in the blazing moonlight, with Twisted Sister in my ears I felt momentarily transported to those long nights in Vac. Danube and soft dark sky and music and bad booze. It was a good growing up. The rasp of lazily burning cigarettes and the nonsense we would talk. There was such comfort there.

Now I'm home, back with Eddie, feeling thoughtful, grateful, and quietly hopeful.

it has been dark for what seems like a long time.
winter, while warm has blanketed me with an unwelcome stillness and a solitude that teeters on the edge of loneliness in an entirely unfamiliar fashion.
Eddie and i are flatmates now. We do what we want, when we want, although this mostly means Ed. Wakes me when he wants, sleeps where he wants, and when he freaks out over the vacuum he either runs full tilt into the closed door, or finds refuge in my undies drawer. It's a good life. For both of us really.

i have kept company with rick castle, jax teller and walter white in the past few months, to keep my mind occupied and away from wallowing in self pity, and mostly it has worked.
I had a good conversation with a friend today who counseled me not to feel special in this wintering. She said at this time of year we all rest too much, and eat too much and try to avoid the dark.

And then this afternoon, just when I needed it most - a most unexpected message from afar. Dear news from Christchurch and a renewed connection. It pulled me through the afternoon with smiling.

When I got home I changed and fixed a gin and ginger tonic and waited for M to arrive. I had a spare ticket to Suzie Miller's Dust at the Heath Ledger and to be honest had run out of contacts to turn to. But I needn't have worried. M's good at talking, I'm a good listener, and the play was good. Not great, and I loved the set more than the action, but the idea behind it was interesting. And the memory of red dust was interesting.
And when we pulled up in front of the house, I worried again, needlessly. All he said was -will you come to the optometrist with me? -

As I shut the gate behind me, already hearing Ed's I'm hungry meows from inside, I looked up and there were stars in the darkness, and shiny gumleaves licked with rain and a beautiful stillness. And for the first time in a long time, when I walked into the apartment my first move was not to turn on a show, or pick up a book. My first move (after dispensing a handful of biscuits to shut Ed up) was to just sit. And now write.
There is a tentative peace.

Goodnight.