Today is one of those days you wish you could have all to yourself. The rain started to fall halfway through the night. I’m an hour north of Sydney now, working with the lovely field officers and rangers at Dharug National Park. After my third project, in Victoria, I landed in Sydney and shuffled north for work with my last student group. Everyday for the past two weeks has been gloriously sunny, but all that sun means no rain, and less rain means less drinking water for livestock and for rural folk in the high time of summer heat. So, today, our last work day as a group and my last day with ISV this season, the rain falls.
Growing up in the Midwest I have a certain taste for rainy days and living out in Colorado, to be honest, I never get enough of them anymore. Today, if I could, I’d light a few candles and soak up the view from the front porch and write poems and ramble aimlessly about life and water and how everything is related after all.
I’ve been so busy with work I haven’t had proper time to fully feel what has taken place these past two months. But here is something I wrote last night, as an attempted summary of my present state of mind. I read it to the students last night:
Down here, in the hot hole of the sun, where the
earth cracks with the disastrous memory of a
convict building a great road north, my skin feels
singed most days—an upset balance of protection and
ozone and other ingredients for catastrophe, like
the two billion cars that hover across the streets even now.
My primitive cave drawing would show only mountains, for
strength; oceans, for peace; and a woman: the symbol of the
human race that encompasses the most beautiful benefits
of consciousness: compassion, affection, and love.
Down here isn’t much different than up there, only here my
mailbox drops small commercialized bombs on me from 11,000 miles
away and my phone number is at the bottom of the ocean and
each day I wake up in a slightly unfamiliar memory of the
day before. There are still crows—yes—crying like wounded
cats from the trees, and there are kookaburras laughing out their
territorial boundaries; there is a soft awareness of time—unlike
other instances of time—for here moments are easily descended into
out of sheer curiosity, or boredom, and there is always enough time to
make the acquaintance of a stranger because those are the only people
to meet.
There is alone but there is no lonely, and I wonder about the two.
I wonder how laughter and a smile shared between two humans with
different backgrounds/religions/politics/fears can push them closer together.
In the aboriginal language there is not a single world that means
“exist” and I wonder if that’s because each individual
journey has been dictated by the others that came before it
and each of us is connected—at least in a spiritual sense—
to everything we come in contact with: the earth, the rivers,
the plants and seeds, the rough and welcome hands of one
another. Without these simplest of connections, and our memories,
what would be become? What kind of animals would we evolve into?
I was once told, the day I left home to travel for the first time,
that once you leave, you can never
go back, not entirely. Down here my vision has changed, my taste for
things, and home has become a memory I carry around on the inside.
A warm place with poetry, a cat, a candle, a lover.
Home has also become a semi-dodgy caravan park I share with ten
near-strangers. But see—that laughter—just then, and smiles and
before any of us realize it we are all moving, evolving in the same
direction, to another home, another path, another journey, another, another…
----
I also had the unfortunate news yesterday of learning that Sue Fear—the first Aussie woman to climb Mt Everest (in 2000), and someone who I had the good fortune to sit next to on a plane from Tasmania to Sydney last season—is believed to have died a few weeks ago while climbing another big mountain. All I know is that she fell into a crevasse. Her wish was that no one would ever risk their own life to bring her body off of a mountain or to try and save her against insurmountable odds. So she is out there, somewhere, beyond death now, surely the way she would have wanted it—at the hands of Mother Nature. But, I was surprised at how sad I felt at the news. Not only was Sue a remarkable mountaineer who really was at the forefront of woman climbers, but she was the most humble and inspirational woman I may ever hope to meet. I had kept in touch with her since last year and was hopeful to meet up with her while in Sydney. An amazing woman and cheers to having so much passion it drives you to attempt unimaginable feats of human endurance and spirit!
I think that’s it for me for a bit. My last project was pretty near perfect—remarkable scenery, staff, and all ten of my students genuinely got on well with one another. Plans now consist of leaving for New Zealand tomorrow morning at 7am. If all goes well then I should be in Christchurch by 5pm, just in time for a cold one with my ISV (another project leader) pal, Erin.
I have to say I haven’t read or heard a speck of news in the last 2 weeks, since all of that madness with the UK/USA and liquids on the planes, and its nice, really, to be this ignorant! Checking email once a week for a few minutes has also been a really welcome reprieve from my daily dose of 2+ hours of internet time! Other than those things, everything is wonderful down here, but I have to say that I really look forward to seeing many of you soon. I think 3 months is about my limit to leave home…or is it? hahahahahaha
hahahaha
Peace to all,
laura
Friday, August 25, 2006
Wombats! Again! New South Wales, Project 4
Wombat Caravan Park and all is well.
I wish that some of you could have seen me behind the wheel yesterday. Driving ten American students through downtown Sydney in a roaring diesel minibus with a monstrous attached trailer. Mike, the only Canadian, was brave enough to act as navigator man (and suffer me silently cursing him every ten minutes). Even though mishaps were eminent, imagine the horror of trying to find a place to turn that rig around!
Perhaps our best mishap was missing the turnoff to the Sydney harbor tunnel because you know what that means—we were driving over the bridge! Before I really knew what the hell was happening, I came around a mass of skyscrapers to meet the bridge view, full on. Really, it’s the most extraordinary, and massive thing. I was immediately nervous with excitement. How does one drive over such a behemoth and NOT look around! I knew the Pacific Ocean was there, and the opera house, and the intricate and extraordinary harbor itself. Well, we made, it, then made a few more wrong turns, and then finally, 2.5 hours after leaving Sydney international airport, we arrived at Wombat Park—a meager 45 kilometers away.
Please stay tuned, my hands are still shaking from the memory…
I wish that some of you could have seen me behind the wheel yesterday. Driving ten American students through downtown Sydney in a roaring diesel minibus with a monstrous attached trailer. Mike, the only Canadian, was brave enough to act as navigator man (and suffer me silently cursing him every ten minutes). Even though mishaps were eminent, imagine the horror of trying to find a place to turn that rig around!
Perhaps our best mishap was missing the turnoff to the Sydney harbor tunnel because you know what that means—we were driving over the bridge! Before I really knew what the hell was happening, I came around a mass of skyscrapers to meet the bridge view, full on. Really, it’s the most extraordinary, and massive thing. I was immediately nervous with excitement. How does one drive over such a behemoth and NOT look around! I knew the Pacific Ocean was there, and the opera house, and the intricate and extraordinary harbor itself. Well, we made, it, then made a few more wrong turns, and then finally, 2.5 hours after leaving Sydney international airport, we arrived at Wombat Park—a meager 45 kilometers away.
Please stay tuned, my hands are still shaking from the memory…
The body as fuel?
(This was written about August 8th or so...I havent had regular access to email--which has actually been quite nice--so these are just a few weeks outdated...cheers!)
One of my students from England, Chris, tells me that fat people burn better. That is, if people were ever to spontaneously combust on the street (have stranger things ever happened?), the fat ones would go first. This conversation erupted after a discussion we had on FIRE. What is fire? What are the benefits of fire as it relates to an ecosystem? See, most of us have grown up with Smokey and ‘fires are bad’ but most of the trees, and many of the plants, in Oz don’t drop seed without the aid of fire, or in some cases, the smoke.
Back to the body. See, fat is the fuel, and the body is the wick. If there is a buildup of methane (watch them beans!) anywhere in the body then the methane catches fire, and burns the fuel. I’m not sure how accurate this is but it sounded good enough to me, especially after a few Victoria Bitters. I actually think fat would burn longer, so the skinny folks would go first, but they wouldn’t burn completely (not enough fuel.) Chris also tells me he watches Body Shock (some warped bizarre medical show, in England) and relayed to us the other night another horrifying detail about a man that was able to perform head transplants with monkeys.
Apparently, we have all gone mad in Australia.
And I would suspect more is on the way. I am a bit more than halfway done with my time down south. I’m anxious about that—anxious to go home, anxious to stay longer. For now I'm seriously enjoying the fishing-village scenery and small port town life. This past weekend the students and I headed east along the Great Ocean Road, one of the most scenic drives in Australia, with outstanding rock formations and epic ocean views such as those of the famous Twelve Apostles. The drive is a real killer, and I do mean killer. Last year 265 car accidents, and 65 deaths, along the winding road, most of those from head-on collisions with other vehicles. The greatest cause of the head-on collision?
Foreigners.
That’s right. All of us tourons traveling from overseas and crossing the line either because we forget we are supposed to stay left, or be cause we are trying to sneak a peak at the view out the window. Pretty scary actually and I admit I was a bit nervous, and extra cautious, all day.
The last week of my previous project, in Portland, Vic was perhaps one of the best weeks I have ever had in Australia (at this point, I have almost 6 months of experience here). That was in most part due to our work with the Winda-Marrah Aboriginal Co-op.
Ever since coming to Australia I’ve craved an understanding of the connection between aboriginal people and the land. After working with the Winda-Marrah, and meeting several aboriginal people and talking with them about their experiences and their present day fight with the Australia Government, I came to a new appreciation for people, and passion, and family and history. For instance I know that the aboriginal people are thought to have come to Australia forty to sixty THOUSAND years ago. But ask me how long the Native Americans have been in America? I got nothing. So I found out: 11,000 years. I never gave a hoot about history in school until I began working with ISV and had to know a fair bit so that I could share it with the students. But I have made some acquaintances and have had a few experiences down here that make me realize how far away I am from ever understanding their lives. I am reminded of how privileged I am—to have the education and the time and the confidence to do a job like this; to have a recognized culture, and identity, and family history; to be respected for who I am, not who I could or should become. Every country in the world has a native population, it seems, that at one time was largely ignored. What can be done about that, now?
One of my students from England, Chris, tells me that fat people burn better. That is, if people were ever to spontaneously combust on the street (have stranger things ever happened?), the fat ones would go first. This conversation erupted after a discussion we had on FIRE. What is fire? What are the benefits of fire as it relates to an ecosystem? See, most of us have grown up with Smokey and ‘fires are bad’ but most of the trees, and many of the plants, in Oz don’t drop seed without the aid of fire, or in some cases, the smoke.
Back to the body. See, fat is the fuel, and the body is the wick. If there is a buildup of methane (watch them beans!) anywhere in the body then the methane catches fire, and burns the fuel. I’m not sure how accurate this is but it sounded good enough to me, especially after a few Victoria Bitters. I actually think fat would burn longer, so the skinny folks would go first, but they wouldn’t burn completely (not enough fuel.) Chris also tells me he watches Body Shock (some warped bizarre medical show, in England) and relayed to us the other night another horrifying detail about a man that was able to perform head transplants with monkeys.
Apparently, we have all gone mad in Australia.
And I would suspect more is on the way. I am a bit more than halfway done with my time down south. I’m anxious about that—anxious to go home, anxious to stay longer. For now I'm seriously enjoying the fishing-village scenery and small port town life. This past weekend the students and I headed east along the Great Ocean Road, one of the most scenic drives in Australia, with outstanding rock formations and epic ocean views such as those of the famous Twelve Apostles. The drive is a real killer, and I do mean killer. Last year 265 car accidents, and 65 deaths, along the winding road, most of those from head-on collisions with other vehicles. The greatest cause of the head-on collision?
Foreigners.
That’s right. All of us tourons traveling from overseas and crossing the line either because we forget we are supposed to stay left, or be cause we are trying to sneak a peak at the view out the window. Pretty scary actually and I admit I was a bit nervous, and extra cautious, all day.
The last week of my previous project, in Portland, Vic was perhaps one of the best weeks I have ever had in Australia (at this point, I have almost 6 months of experience here). That was in most part due to our work with the Winda-Marrah Aboriginal Co-op.
Ever since coming to Australia I’ve craved an understanding of the connection between aboriginal people and the land. After working with the Winda-Marrah, and meeting several aboriginal people and talking with them about their experiences and their present day fight with the Australia Government, I came to a new appreciation for people, and passion, and family and history. For instance I know that the aboriginal people are thought to have come to Australia forty to sixty THOUSAND years ago. But ask me how long the Native Americans have been in America? I got nothing. So I found out: 11,000 years. I never gave a hoot about history in school until I began working with ISV and had to know a fair bit so that I could share it with the students. But I have made some acquaintances and have had a few experiences down here that make me realize how far away I am from ever understanding their lives. I am reminded of how privileged I am—to have the education and the time and the confidence to do a job like this; to have a recognized culture, and identity, and family history; to be respected for who I am, not who I could or should become. Every country in the world has a native population, it seems, that at one time was largely ignored. What can be done about that, now?
Thursday, August 03, 2006
Project 3: Portland, Victoria
“Make sure to tell the guys to roll their socks up,” Andrew said, a project coordinator with DSE, Department of Sustainability and Environment. “There’s leeches at Mt. Richmond.”
If the students aren’t annoyed enough by my sense of humor and knack for taking pictures of just about everything, then they are really going to have their hands full with both me, and Andrew! Andrew has that smart-ass humor that I, naturally, love, and he’s also a fine photographer with enough lenses and photo equipment and know-how to keep me following him around like a puppy.
At Mt. Richmond we gathered for our mandatory project orientation and weren’t really looking for leeches, not exactly; okay, I lie, I was looking. I was flipping over leaves, checking the underside of thick grass blades. Where would they be? I wondered. And what would they look like? Then, without warning, someone screeched, “You have one on you!” Only they weren’t screeching at me, they were screeching at the one English fellow, Chris. And then, just as suddenly, the ground seemed to shift, movement everywhere.
Leeches.
On our boots, pants, socks, and coming quick. Funny too, because instead of going somewhere else, maybe a safe place like sand or a road, we stood there like foreign fools, scraping leeches off one boot only to find another grabbing onto the other. We did this for maybe ten minutes before someone had the bright idea to MOVE! Talk about PARANOID. All day checking our pants, in fact, we kept our pants in our socks for the next eight hours, through three or four other tourist sites and even when we stopped for tea down along the coast. Though, the paranoia might also have come from what happened to my other Brit, Theo. After lunch (where we had bbq’d roo meat…yum) she lifted up her shirt a bit because she felt something “sticky”. She asked another student if she had a leech on her. What?? Of course we all looked. And there, my friends, on her white English belly, I beheld the grandest daddy of them all, engorged with Theo’s blood and looking for more. Whoa! Again, what kind of leader am I? First thing I did was run off to grab my camera! Andrew, quite thankfully, burned the bugger off of her. Do you know why you have to burn them? Because if you pull them off (oh, the temptation!) their little jaws will stick inside you and cause serious infection. Another fact: they inject a bit of anti-coagulant in, right before they start sucking, and poor Theo was still bleeding that night before she went to bed (on to nightmares about small sucking objects…)
What with it winter and all down here, I regret to never have any snake stories, only tales of bugs and other small creepy crawlies. And it is one such creepy crawly (at least I’m guessing) that I think snuck into my sleeping bag whilst I was staying at a seedy motel on Friday night in Melbourne. Bites my friends, at least 30 or so small ones, some as big as dimes and that look like hives/mosquito bites. Oh, and they itch! I have them across my neck, belly and both arms—which makes me think bugs because my legs and upper torso are fine. I feel fine physically but then just last night one of my girls said I had a funny shaped thing on the back of my neck. Great, I thought, here goes the beginning of my tale of woe and how I was bit by a red-back somewhere along the way. Not cool being ‘bitten’ by something and not knowing what the hell it is, especially in Oz. But, good news—Andrew said the ‘bite’ on my neck might just be an ingrown pimple. Hmm. How attractive am I now? Bites! Pimples!
Even if I’m a temporary freak show, at least the view is stunning. Victoria is the state smack on the southeast tip of Australia, directly over Tassie, with gorgeous dramatic coastlines and a healthy Koala population. I hate to brag but I had one of the coolest moments of my life on our first day in Victoria. At a place called Tower Hill Reserve, protected area akin to a national park, we took turns petting a real live, “wild” koala. The land was originally cleared and used for agriculture. Not a pretty site. 20 years ago or so the entire area was revegetated with native gums and wattles (trees) and now 180 Koalas live there. We were fortunate enough to find a slumbery fellow to poke and prod and photo not three meters off of the ground.
Victoria also boasts greener than green vistas. Its always a shocker to see this side of Australia. More than 70% of this continent is dry as bone and nearly inhabitable to those that don’t understand the land (i.e. most white folks). But the coasts, and in particular, Victoria, are quite green. It’s misleading though, traveling through all that lush veg, and in full view of the ocean, because its hard to imagine a water problem over this way. Much less everywhere else in the world.
Ah so much. We are working with the rare and endangered Mellblom’s Spider Orchid this first week. A truly phenomenal flowering plant that works symbiotically with a fungus in order to grow. If the fungus isn’t there to break down nutrients in the soil for the orchid, the orchid doesn’t grow. Its crazy and inspiring to watch a fully-grown man, like Andrew, chase these things down and treating them like (better than) children. A rare plant indeed that is getting lots of attention over this way.
I also think of early settlers often. What it must have been like to sail an awkward wooden vessel through the “Roaring Forties”, the name given to the winds that move across the Bass Straight. These winds are phenomenally consistent in their strength, coming off of the southern tip of Africa and the South Ocean. It’s no wonder that dozens of famous shipwreck stories pepper the southern coast of Australia. It’s been so windy most days (and I'm talking almost blow you over wind) that I hate to imagine trying to negotiate a safe landing against the shallow rocks and jagged stone cliffs that meet the sea.
But that wind is good for a few things. In particular, wind farms. Portland, my home for the next two weeks, is destined to become one of the premier wind farms in Australia. When all is said and done, the wind farms will provide electricity to more than 17,000 homes in Victoria.
All right, my head is spinning, once again. I’m also horribly out of touch (very little email access) and have been writing these notes on my computer and saving them on disk. I hope everyone is well. I can read emails but not send any (at least not many) until I’m back in the big city of Sydney.
Lastly, HAPPY (late) BIRTHDAY TO MY DAD!!!! I’ll bring you something back sweet! Thanks for all your love and support, you are the greatest and most generous person I know.
Much love to all,
laura
If the students aren’t annoyed enough by my sense of humor and knack for taking pictures of just about everything, then they are really going to have their hands full with both me, and Andrew! Andrew has that smart-ass humor that I, naturally, love, and he’s also a fine photographer with enough lenses and photo equipment and know-how to keep me following him around like a puppy.
At Mt. Richmond we gathered for our mandatory project orientation and weren’t really looking for leeches, not exactly; okay, I lie, I was looking. I was flipping over leaves, checking the underside of thick grass blades. Where would they be? I wondered. And what would they look like? Then, without warning, someone screeched, “You have one on you!” Only they weren’t screeching at me, they were screeching at the one English fellow, Chris. And then, just as suddenly, the ground seemed to shift, movement everywhere.
Leeches.
On our boots, pants, socks, and coming quick. Funny too, because instead of going somewhere else, maybe a safe place like sand or a road, we stood there like foreign fools, scraping leeches off one boot only to find another grabbing onto the other. We did this for maybe ten minutes before someone had the bright idea to MOVE! Talk about PARANOID. All day checking our pants, in fact, we kept our pants in our socks for the next eight hours, through three or four other tourist sites and even when we stopped for tea down along the coast. Though, the paranoia might also have come from what happened to my other Brit, Theo. After lunch (where we had bbq’d roo meat…yum) she lifted up her shirt a bit because she felt something “sticky”. She asked another student if she had a leech on her. What?? Of course we all looked. And there, my friends, on her white English belly, I beheld the grandest daddy of them all, engorged with Theo’s blood and looking for more. Whoa! Again, what kind of leader am I? First thing I did was run off to grab my camera! Andrew, quite thankfully, burned the bugger off of her. Do you know why you have to burn them? Because if you pull them off (oh, the temptation!) their little jaws will stick inside you and cause serious infection. Another fact: they inject a bit of anti-coagulant in, right before they start sucking, and poor Theo was still bleeding that night before she went to bed (on to nightmares about small sucking objects…)
What with it winter and all down here, I regret to never have any snake stories, only tales of bugs and other small creepy crawlies. And it is one such creepy crawly (at least I’m guessing) that I think snuck into my sleeping bag whilst I was staying at a seedy motel on Friday night in Melbourne. Bites my friends, at least 30 or so small ones, some as big as dimes and that look like hives/mosquito bites. Oh, and they itch! I have them across my neck, belly and both arms—which makes me think bugs because my legs and upper torso are fine. I feel fine physically but then just last night one of my girls said I had a funny shaped thing on the back of my neck. Great, I thought, here goes the beginning of my tale of woe and how I was bit by a red-back somewhere along the way. Not cool being ‘bitten’ by something and not knowing what the hell it is, especially in Oz. But, good news—Andrew said the ‘bite’ on my neck might just be an ingrown pimple. Hmm. How attractive am I now? Bites! Pimples!
Even if I’m a temporary freak show, at least the view is stunning. Victoria is the state smack on the southeast tip of Australia, directly over Tassie, with gorgeous dramatic coastlines and a healthy Koala population. I hate to brag but I had one of the coolest moments of my life on our first day in Victoria. At a place called Tower Hill Reserve, protected area akin to a national park, we took turns petting a real live, “wild” koala. The land was originally cleared and used for agriculture. Not a pretty site. 20 years ago or so the entire area was revegetated with native gums and wattles (trees) and now 180 Koalas live there. We were fortunate enough to find a slumbery fellow to poke and prod and photo not three meters off of the ground.
Victoria also boasts greener than green vistas. Its always a shocker to see this side of Australia. More than 70% of this continent is dry as bone and nearly inhabitable to those that don’t understand the land (i.e. most white folks). But the coasts, and in particular, Victoria, are quite green. It’s misleading though, traveling through all that lush veg, and in full view of the ocean, because its hard to imagine a water problem over this way. Much less everywhere else in the world.
Ah so much. We are working with the rare and endangered Mellblom’s Spider Orchid this first week. A truly phenomenal flowering plant that works symbiotically with a fungus in order to grow. If the fungus isn’t there to break down nutrients in the soil for the orchid, the orchid doesn’t grow. Its crazy and inspiring to watch a fully-grown man, like Andrew, chase these things down and treating them like (better than) children. A rare plant indeed that is getting lots of attention over this way.
I also think of early settlers often. What it must have been like to sail an awkward wooden vessel through the “Roaring Forties”, the name given to the winds that move across the Bass Straight. These winds are phenomenally consistent in their strength, coming off of the southern tip of Africa and the South Ocean. It’s no wonder that dozens of famous shipwreck stories pepper the southern coast of Australia. It’s been so windy most days (and I'm talking almost blow you over wind) that I hate to imagine trying to negotiate a safe landing against the shallow rocks and jagged stone cliffs that meet the sea.
But that wind is good for a few things. In particular, wind farms. Portland, my home for the next two weeks, is destined to become one of the premier wind farms in Australia. When all is said and done, the wind farms will provide electricity to more than 17,000 homes in Victoria.
All right, my head is spinning, once again. I’m also horribly out of touch (very little email access) and have been writing these notes on my computer and saving them on disk. I hope everyone is well. I can read emails but not send any (at least not many) until I’m back in the big city of Sydney.
Lastly, HAPPY (late) BIRTHDAY TO MY DAD!!!! I’ll bring you something back sweet! Thanks for all your love and support, you are the greatest and most generous person I know.
Much love to all,
laura
Prison Tours and Ghosts
The amazing and wonderful women that we have been working under for the last two weeks, Polly and Renae, thanked us for a job well done (31,000 trees in the ground, here’s to hoping that most of them have a good fighting chance!) by taking us into Fremantle for the night. There we were finally faced with the monstrous Indian Ocean (and ran amuck in it for half an hour), took a tour of the Fremantle Prison (the oldest prison structure in the country built by convicts), and then hit a sweet brewery for dinner, Little Creatures.
No ghosts sighted on the prison tour. I was pretty sure there was major energy floating around the place though, through my fingers, around our curious eyes, the walls were seeping with it but I noticed only Polly and I touched the walls, searching. Polly sees ghosts. She has seen several. I myself may have seen several (how do you know if someone is a ghost, or is real?) and have definitely had ‘encounters’ but the only real time I was slightly disturbed on the tour was when the guide cornered Polly and I, along with 30 others, into the dead end of the Solitary Confinement building. Polly freaked out and then when she did, I did. We bolted for the door and stood where we could see the night sky. The energy in the building was thick with misery. You could feel it brush its soft tongue on your skin. The aboriginal people believed that all of their experiences—joy, pain, elation, birth, death—all of the emotions were tied directly to the land. Their spirits were one with those memories and emotions. That is why it has been so devastating for them to have their land seized by government. To live somewhere else means that they must leave their spirit, their energy, their memory and past and future behind. So think of all the energy retained in those prison walls.
90 days some men were confined, in total darkness, with only the three B’s – bible, bed, bucket. Some had a bit of light in the cell but with others the windows were blanketed over. So, 90 days in total darkness, with half an hour each day out into the sun. See, psychological torture is the kind of torture that scares me the most. Alone with your mind for that long, especially if you have a very active imagination (like me) would surely drive a person completely insane. Its no wonder that a lunatic asylum had to be built on the ground to handle all of the madness that emerged from those solitary cells.
Today we have off as we pack and pick up our belongings that we have scattered all along the place. But I do have some things I’ve been thinking about. Laughter in particular, and aloneness.
Something that a friend wrote recently has me pondering. She speculated that I am never actually “alone” on these work journeys; I am surrounded by students, and work, and others.
Friendships happen much faster when you travel without a solid branch of close compadres. In many ways I feel more ‘complete’ when traveling because there is no expectation placed on one another save for the telling of a good story, a few shared beers, and an easy good luck and adios for now. I find the parts of myself that I share with these near-strangers are often the most raw, the most hidden, even the most difficult. Then, if given a few days, I watch the friendship create itself. I have met people that surely are my soul mates, or were in a past life, or will be in a future one, but that, for now, I only have the glorious opportunity to experience for a short period of time.
Then, I been thinking about love, and do you notice how you can never describe the actual moment you fall in love? You can describe all of the exhilarating moments leading up to it, and everything afterward, but that moment, that second, that look, touch, glance, when you fall in love, is indescribable.
I realized how much I actually loved this group a few nights ago. We were sitting around the table having dinner, and laughing…about alpaca underwear and did they sell thongs? And many other tasteless jokes. Not enough can be said about the fabulous gel of a table full of laughter. I can’t remember when I laughed for so long, so hard. Its rare, laughter like that. Can you think of it now? The last time?
Then, back to aloneness. This aching realization that dwells just under the surface. Knowing that we say goodbye tomorrow, for good. Even though I have a strong feeling I will see a handful of these students again I could never say when, I could never say where. My younger brother is a teacher. I think this is the hardest part about teaching, saying goodbye, letting go. Starting over. Every day, it seems, challenges me to question, further, exactly who I am, where I want to be, I reflect on the synergy of human bonding, and also ways I can become a better person—friend, lover, sister, mother (of a cat). Right now I don’t have these answers but I am asking them all of the time and feel that, on some level, I am learning what I need to know.
I know this blog is mostly for myself, but also for my family and those few interested friends. Thanks to all of you for reading. I’m halfway through my work projects and tomorrow fly to Melbourne in time for my third project, down along the coast in a town by the name of Portland.
Laura
No ghosts sighted on the prison tour. I was pretty sure there was major energy floating around the place though, through my fingers, around our curious eyes, the walls were seeping with it but I noticed only Polly and I touched the walls, searching. Polly sees ghosts. She has seen several. I myself may have seen several (how do you know if someone is a ghost, or is real?) and have definitely had ‘encounters’ but the only real time I was slightly disturbed on the tour was when the guide cornered Polly and I, along with 30 others, into the dead end of the Solitary Confinement building. Polly freaked out and then when she did, I did. We bolted for the door and stood where we could see the night sky. The energy in the building was thick with misery. You could feel it brush its soft tongue on your skin. The aboriginal people believed that all of their experiences—joy, pain, elation, birth, death—all of the emotions were tied directly to the land. Their spirits were one with those memories and emotions. That is why it has been so devastating for them to have their land seized by government. To live somewhere else means that they must leave their spirit, their energy, their memory and past and future behind. So think of all the energy retained in those prison walls.
90 days some men were confined, in total darkness, with only the three B’s – bible, bed, bucket. Some had a bit of light in the cell but with others the windows were blanketed over. So, 90 days in total darkness, with half an hour each day out into the sun. See, psychological torture is the kind of torture that scares me the most. Alone with your mind for that long, especially if you have a very active imagination (like me) would surely drive a person completely insane. Its no wonder that a lunatic asylum had to be built on the ground to handle all of the madness that emerged from those solitary cells.
Today we have off as we pack and pick up our belongings that we have scattered all along the place. But I do have some things I’ve been thinking about. Laughter in particular, and aloneness.
Something that a friend wrote recently has me pondering. She speculated that I am never actually “alone” on these work journeys; I am surrounded by students, and work, and others.
Friendships happen much faster when you travel without a solid branch of close compadres. In many ways I feel more ‘complete’ when traveling because there is no expectation placed on one another save for the telling of a good story, a few shared beers, and an easy good luck and adios for now. I find the parts of myself that I share with these near-strangers are often the most raw, the most hidden, even the most difficult. Then, if given a few days, I watch the friendship create itself. I have met people that surely are my soul mates, or were in a past life, or will be in a future one, but that, for now, I only have the glorious opportunity to experience for a short period of time.
Then, I been thinking about love, and do you notice how you can never describe the actual moment you fall in love? You can describe all of the exhilarating moments leading up to it, and everything afterward, but that moment, that second, that look, touch, glance, when you fall in love, is indescribable.
I realized how much I actually loved this group a few nights ago. We were sitting around the table having dinner, and laughing…about alpaca underwear and did they sell thongs? And many other tasteless jokes. Not enough can be said about the fabulous gel of a table full of laughter. I can’t remember when I laughed for so long, so hard. Its rare, laughter like that. Can you think of it now? The last time?
Then, back to aloneness. This aching realization that dwells just under the surface. Knowing that we say goodbye tomorrow, for good. Even though I have a strong feeling I will see a handful of these students again I could never say when, I could never say where. My younger brother is a teacher. I think this is the hardest part about teaching, saying goodbye, letting go. Starting over. Every day, it seems, challenges me to question, further, exactly who I am, where I want to be, I reflect on the synergy of human bonding, and also ways I can become a better person—friend, lover, sister, mother (of a cat). Right now I don’t have these answers but I am asking them all of the time and feel that, on some level, I am learning what I need to know.
I know this blog is mostly for myself, but also for my family and those few interested friends. Thanks to all of you for reading. I’m halfway through my work projects and tomorrow fly to Melbourne in time for my third project, down along the coast in a town by the name of Portland.
Laura
Contemplations on Donkeys, and Road Trains
Sweet serene leaf floating
at the very top of the emerald tree,
already you fight
the long (lost) fight
with gravity.
How do you know when to
begin?
To divide one cell, two, four
eight thousand times more—
creating enough surface to
catch light, create
energy, add entropy, and force the birth
of others exactly like
you.
More surface = more sunlight = more fuel.
How do you know when to kill yourself in one last gleeful (and disappointing?)
swoop down?
On the earth is where the real killing begins anyway.
Once the rain
and the critters move tunnels of you through
yourself, and the
freeze and thaw cycle churns its own season of
decomposition;
then whatever golden cells were yours release
that same manic, leaf-making
energy
back into the next root to strike its
valiant heart
home; into
the aching remnants of your
green back.
At the very top of that next emerald, that gem,
do you begin again?
Is all of life simply death, waiting
to fuel another life?
--
Today I’m struck wondering how the hell a donkey ever evolved to make the sound that it does. I’m wondering because there is a donkey on the farm that brays when he’s: Excited? Hungry? Afraid? It’s hard to know because it’s the only sound he makes. I wasn’t more than five meters from him today when he let loose. The bray is first like a great roar, so awkward and off-kilter that for a moment you think something is wrong with the beast. After a few seconds he sucked in so much wind that I thought he’d surely asphyxiate himself, but then he unleashed a series of gasping, whistling, ridiculous guffaws. Afterwards, he seemed quite proud of himself. It was all so quick and loud and unnerving that I was shocked and began to laugh, nervously. Then I felt strangely like trying it myself.
And the roosters. They make their own signature sound, surely. But not just at dawn, the damn things cock a doodle doo an hour before sun-up, and even now, at twilight. There are even several of the chickens that hoist themselves into a tree, about three meters off of the ground. They are all in the same family, seven of them, and they hop up the branches one by one, using each other as temporary branches if need be, until they are all snug up above. Then they begin to nod off. Why? Well, to avoid the foxes, of course!
Animals are freaky little things aren’t they? The way they have evolved, and continue to do so, and devise their own little ways to adapt to our hellishly foolish and destructive asses. The cockroaches will outlast us all. There is no doubt about that. They will run amuck in the markets of New York City while the last bits of human civilization smolder somewhere in the streets…
Happy thoughts!
A note on the dolls. Tonight on my second tour of the doll trailer Kay told us about the “Companion Dolls.” These dolls were made in the early 1900’s specifically for spinsters—women without children. The dolls are very lifelike, and bigger, like real children. They were kept in parlors and the women dressed them, brushed their hair, and talked to them, as if they were real children. Very creepy, but also very sad.
Alas, no matter how scary I try to make the doll experience over here, it just hasn’t happened. I honestly feel like I’m walking around on the set of a campy horror movie—where you can easily envision all kinds of nightmare-fuel and epically creepy shit happening. But I find when I walk through the doll trailer that I’m just not afraid. So many of them actually look sweet and I’m curious as to their histories. And besides, Kay is so lovely (and treats all of the farm animals as children, which really puts a warm ember in my heart) that you feel bad making jokes about something she has obviously put a lot of energy, passion, and time into. She’s been collecting the dolls for 26 years and has over 1,800 of the beady-eyed little things. I asked her why she started collecting them and she said simply, “I had four boys.” And it’s not a half bad hobby money wise: She reckons the value of the dolls in the trailer is near 100,000 AU (about 75,000 US).
So that’s that with the doll house, but I do have a pretty amazing setting for other possible scenarios (i.e. stories) that could evolve out of the whole thing, AND, there is something in the woods out this way. We don’t see what it is but we hear it moving about in the darkness when we go to and from the toilet. I’m not saying the dolls AREN’T alive. I’m not saying that at all. They very well could be running in the woods, laughing at us, and plotting midnight attacks. What I’m saying is simply that I don’t have any proof of doll activity.
Yet.
Lastly, the road trains. Do you want to know the best way to have a truly unique and intimate experience with a road train? Well, try running 12 km along the side of the highway for starters. Road trains are quite extraordinarily imposing. These consist of three or four huge trailers barreling down the highway towed by a high-powered truck. They are akin to semi’s back home but longer, and they seem more menacing because the highways are much more narrow in Australia. I wasn’t so much afraid of the road train whilst running, but more so of things flying off of the crazy cargo that many of them hauled and hitting me in the face!
Peace for now,
laura
at the very top of the emerald tree,
already you fight
the long (lost) fight
with gravity.
How do you know when to
begin?
To divide one cell, two, four
eight thousand times more—
creating enough surface to
catch light, create
energy, add entropy, and force the birth
of others exactly like
you.
More surface = more sunlight = more fuel.
How do you know when to kill yourself in one last gleeful (and disappointing?)
swoop down?
On the earth is where the real killing begins anyway.
Once the rain
and the critters move tunnels of you through
yourself, and the
freeze and thaw cycle churns its own season of
decomposition;
then whatever golden cells were yours release
that same manic, leaf-making
energy
back into the next root to strike its
valiant heart
home; into
the aching remnants of your
green back.
At the very top of that next emerald, that gem,
do you begin again?
Is all of life simply death, waiting
to fuel another life?
--
Today I’m struck wondering how the hell a donkey ever evolved to make the sound that it does. I’m wondering because there is a donkey on the farm that brays when he’s: Excited? Hungry? Afraid? It’s hard to know because it’s the only sound he makes. I wasn’t more than five meters from him today when he let loose. The bray is first like a great roar, so awkward and off-kilter that for a moment you think something is wrong with the beast. After a few seconds he sucked in so much wind that I thought he’d surely asphyxiate himself, but then he unleashed a series of gasping, whistling, ridiculous guffaws. Afterwards, he seemed quite proud of himself. It was all so quick and loud and unnerving that I was shocked and began to laugh, nervously. Then I felt strangely like trying it myself.
And the roosters. They make their own signature sound, surely. But not just at dawn, the damn things cock a doodle doo an hour before sun-up, and even now, at twilight. There are even several of the chickens that hoist themselves into a tree, about three meters off of the ground. They are all in the same family, seven of them, and they hop up the branches one by one, using each other as temporary branches if need be, until they are all snug up above. Then they begin to nod off. Why? Well, to avoid the foxes, of course!
Animals are freaky little things aren’t they? The way they have evolved, and continue to do so, and devise their own little ways to adapt to our hellishly foolish and destructive asses. The cockroaches will outlast us all. There is no doubt about that. They will run amuck in the markets of New York City while the last bits of human civilization smolder somewhere in the streets…
Happy thoughts!
A note on the dolls. Tonight on my second tour of the doll trailer Kay told us about the “Companion Dolls.” These dolls were made in the early 1900’s specifically for spinsters—women without children. The dolls are very lifelike, and bigger, like real children. They were kept in parlors and the women dressed them, brushed their hair, and talked to them, as if they were real children. Very creepy, but also very sad.
Alas, no matter how scary I try to make the doll experience over here, it just hasn’t happened. I honestly feel like I’m walking around on the set of a campy horror movie—where you can easily envision all kinds of nightmare-fuel and epically creepy shit happening. But I find when I walk through the doll trailer that I’m just not afraid. So many of them actually look sweet and I’m curious as to their histories. And besides, Kay is so lovely (and treats all of the farm animals as children, which really puts a warm ember in my heart) that you feel bad making jokes about something she has obviously put a lot of energy, passion, and time into. She’s been collecting the dolls for 26 years and has over 1,800 of the beady-eyed little things. I asked her why she started collecting them and she said simply, “I had four boys.” And it’s not a half bad hobby money wise: She reckons the value of the dolls in the trailer is near 100,000 AU (about 75,000 US).
So that’s that with the doll house, but I do have a pretty amazing setting for other possible scenarios (i.e. stories) that could evolve out of the whole thing, AND, there is something in the woods out this way. We don’t see what it is but we hear it moving about in the darkness when we go to and from the toilet. I’m not saying the dolls AREN’T alive. I’m not saying that at all. They very well could be running in the woods, laughing at us, and plotting midnight attacks. What I’m saying is simply that I don’t have any proof of doll activity.
Yet.
Lastly, the road trains. Do you want to know the best way to have a truly unique and intimate experience with a road train? Well, try running 12 km along the side of the highway for starters. Road trains are quite extraordinarily imposing. These consist of three or four huge trailers barreling down the highway towed by a high-powered truck. They are akin to semi’s back home but longer, and they seem more menacing because the highways are much more narrow in Australia. I wasn’t so much afraid of the road train whilst running, but more so of things flying off of the crazy cargo that many of them hauled and hitting me in the face!
Peace for now,
laura
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