She laid them out in front of her

She laid them out in front of her.

Photos of the faces of the men she had slept with.

Sometimes, she just needed perspective.

Whenever she felt like she wasn’t achieving anything she’d take out the photos and spread them out on the dining room table, or sometimes on her bedroom floor. She had only once taken them into her studio – but that was dangerous. They interfered with her work.

With a cup of peppermint tea beside her, she laid them out in front her.

Her finger would trace the details she had enjoyed the most about each different man; his nose; his crooked chin; his cardigan; his glasses he’d left on the side table; his broad shouldered shirts she’d worn to make breakfast; his six o’clock shadow that had left her reddened and worn the next day; his smile.

Some, she would linger on, as her memory flipped through its files in search of a name. Her finger would tap lightly on his cheek as she thought.

She would always get there in the end with a small sigh of recognition. And when she did remember, she would say his name out loud in breathy voice laced with relief, his name whispered with fondness (usually) and a nostalgia would then curl its way onto her lips, folding them into a wistful smile. They were remembered.

Then she would place the photographs one on top of another, in no particular order. And return them to the bottom draw where they were stored. Then she would leave her dining room, or her bedroom and return to her studio. She would approach her worktable, look, pause then remember what she was doing and where she was up to and continue to work.

Centro Historico, Mexico City Federal Districo

I arrived in the dumb-early morning and as if in an art house film, I watched from my taxi's window a city move past me; a city that sprawled beyond the street lamps and evaporated into the darkness. 

Mexico City.

I couldn’t remember a time when I hadn’t wanted to come to Mexico. And there I was. In Mexico. Sweating at 5am. And hoping my taxi driver wasn’t going to rob me.

A bouncy night clerk showed me to a bed at the hostel and I napped.

Groggy, I awoke, with a sense of nervous excitement tinged with foreboding… because I’m nothing if not dramatic.

I lay awake, with the city pulsating outside and I worried that I would be disappointed. With Mexico, with life, with love. And what then? What happens when disappearing isn’t enough?

I lay there listening to other tourists getting ready for their days and I remembered not 3 weeks earlier, my friend Dan had talked at me about Carl Sagan. I listened to him explain for a good 20 minutes that Sagan was an astronomer, a “science communicator” and – according to Dan – a total babe. 

‘What are you interested in at the moment?’ Dan had asked when he had finished and was faced with a strange silence. A wave of what was now a familiar emptiness returned. ‘Nothing, really’ was my response, one fraught with self-esteem issues. It was a whingey disposition that I couldn’t shake so the reply hung flaccid and damp in the air.

And now? …

I was in Mexico. 

Had anything changed?

I got up without an answer, needing coffee & an orange juice to deal with such a heady question. I padded down the cool steps of the hostel. My hand hovered for a moment over the front door handle. 

Was anything going to change?

I tugged at the door because it was heavier than I had expected until I realised it was a push not a pull door anyway, so I pushed with an umph and then I stepped out into the blinding heat and the chaotic streets.

And disappeared.

***

In Centro Historico, the indiscriminate sun pummels the large slabs of imposing Spanish architecture, that crumbles above. It dries the blood and dog shit on the torn footpaths underfoot. And it blushes the sweaty cheeks of Gringos who tower over the squish of people in Ciudad de Mexico.

It’s hot.

It’s energetic.

But it’s slow.  

It’s no secret that my inner rhythm is not the quickest. So the Mexican pace should have come naturally. But I was still on Melbourne time. I was still a little harried, a little late and a little encumbered by lists of things to do. And despite my general slowness, my gait is a quick one especially so when on a hunt for caffeine and “jugo de naranja, por favour”. There are as many people in Mexico City as there are in the whole of the continent of Australia and it felt in this moment that all of them wanted to get in my way.

There was rubbish and cracks and holes and boarded up crevasses to trip over, bump into or fall down. And so: I tripped. I bumped. I fell.

Taco and toastado vendors yelled at no one in particular that they had both Tacos and  Tostados ¡que sorpresa. At least I guessed that’s what they were saying, mi espainol es terrible, lo siento.

Cars were piled up at red lights and the drivers were without concession for lazy tourists, who were still blinking away the jet lag.

Brunch. Coffee. OJ. A wander and a wonder. The sun began to set.

Despacio.

A cool breeze relieved the tingly, reddening skin and the shade became shadow.

As the sun evaporated into the edge of the city the night felt ominous. But as I searched for a restaurant for dinner, I found that the night brought with it a peace. A quiet. With intermittent bursts of life and light and laughing, a sense of possibility unfolded.

It felt as if there was something else going on here. Something I didn’t know about yet. Like… As if there was a secret river running under the city, or… something.

It felt like there may have been a place hidden from the sun and the shadows, somewhere. A place that could only be accessed through a hole in the ground and climbed down to by a grimy, moss-laden ladder.

Maybe I was just imagining things. I have a habit of doing that sometimes.

But if there was a secret river I had no doubt that it would be a place the artists, the teachers, the astronomers and the total babes would ride atop in gondolas, pontificating and lamenting, as has been their want throughout the ages.

Here, we would speak a secret language, one that everyone knew, but didn’t know they knew until they arrived. It would be here that we’d drink tequila or rum or whiskey or beer or mezcal or pulque and talk until the sun threatened to rise.

We’d gorge ourselves on ideas and conversations then throw them onto the walls like fabulous cream pies. They would plop and thwack and slide down the walls to finally crystalise into our art, our songs and our stories.

And we’d float.

And think.

And wonder about the stars.

We would yell-talk across the water and clash our champagne glasses together. We’d hold hands and kiss each other lightly and laugh like fireworks at a carnival.

And as that sun would begin to rise outside, sleepy and floppy we’d float, not wanting to acknowledge the approaching day with its insistent needs and demands and lists of things to do.

A beat here. A moment. A pause. Un pequito ensueno.

Or not.

Well fed and safely back in my hotel, I realised all of this was outrageously whimsical, silly even.

Maybe there was no canal under D.F.¹, perhaps there were no pretentious hipsters breezily sailing by each other underneath the city. 

But I was, for the first time in a long time, curious and interested and I wanted to investigate. Even if it wasn’t true, that tingle of possibility was beginning to change the colour of my eyes, here, at night, in Centro Historico, Cuidad de Mexico, Distrito Federal, Mexico.

(1) In the time of the Aztecs the site of Mexico City was an island in the middle of Lake Texcoco. Before the Spanish invaded there was a complex floating economy and trading system on the lake. When the Spanish invaded and over took this area, they drained the lake and filled in the area to build the city that is now known as Mexico City. The contemporary city now rests on the site of Lake Texcoco and due to natural irrigation and water table, water still needs to be pumped from the underneath the city. Thus the city is unstable and slowly sinking, the evidence of which can be seen through the lopsided cathedrals and buildings throughout. Whether there are mysterious (and accessible) canals running underneath the city with artists and astronomers afloat on them still remains to be proven. 

Conversations in Krabi

Dear Dave,

By the time you get this I’ll be in a Thai resort with a bunch of Aussie tourists and their children, who will no doubt have names like Ragan and Shylar. It will be a type of hell to be sure, but not all together unpleasant and one must be grateful for the bogan as well as the lovely things in life, I guess.

Besides, beneath the crisp white of resort bed sheets, lies no imprint of someone who is not there… It’s a time to starfish the fuck out of that King sized bed.

But I’m not there yet.

Right now, I am in Bottle Beach – a small shack-filled village on the coast Koh Pha Ngan where the wifi and electricity are unreliable at the best of times and the toilet paper is not necessarily included in the price of a room. But with a cold Singha beer, a plate full of Pad Thai in front of me and the gentle lapping of a turquoise sea at my side - it’s certainly a small slice of paradise.

A small slice of paradise - Bottle Beach, Koh Pha Ngan

It has been 10 hours since we parted ways. And I imagine you are in transit somewhere, heading home. And I’m here, writing, because without wifi or electricity there’s not much else to do except hand write a letter or 6. And time alone, even when spent in paradise, can get a girl thinking about what has gone before and all those mistakes she’s made.

If saying ‘Nah. Thanks though’, to your offer of a pre-bought breakfast from   7-11 last night, was my first mistake, my next was less a lack of good judgment and more a rather flakey-girl-vaug-o-how-the-hell-did-that-happen type of mistake. The type I have unfortunately become famous for. Funny. I always thought I’d be fabulously famous, but you take what you can get at this late stage.

As you know, the day began with our sleep-encrusted farewell as you left at 6 am.

And I waited, with an empty stomach and visions of black coffee to keep me company.

The mini bus arrived and after a fight to the death with a cloud of mosquitos and some whingy Canadians, I made it to the ferry port, scrunched and stiff after my ride. Here, I and the other hundreds of baggage laden tourists were herded onto the awaiting boats. I positioned myself to overlook the water as we pulled away from the port, bound for the east coast islands of Thailand.

As the boat surged onwards I became lost in a thread of thoughts as intricate as a Tolkin map. Now, I am not comparing my trip to Koh Pha Ngan to the Fellowship of the Ring - my toes might be a little hairy but I’m in no way Hobbit-like. But Tolkien, Pratchett and Adams were nerd authors we had gushed over as we sat in the hotel lobby in Krabi. And since nerd gushing is the best kind, I wanted to reference it.

There were many conversations in Krabi. Some of them interesting, some hilarious and others of not much import, but they were easy.

Inevitably though our exes began to swim around in our cocktails and conversations. And exes are a dangerous topic of conversation, especially so during a surprising and light Thailand fling. I know that everyone has exes at our age. So I can’t explain why the cocktails and conversations in Krabi made my boots so heavy.

It was this conversation I stopped at in my thoughts on the ferry to Koh Pan Ngan.

I remembered that I had once declared that I never wanted to get married. I just wanted to travel and have wonderful love affairs around the world. I was young and romantic and probably slightly retarded back then. But, in a way, that’s sort of what I have been doing – so a double fist pump for achieving one’s goals. And a small sigh in honour of the lost loves along the way.

I guess, when I had made this wish I didn’t realise how much of a short stop these ‘love affairs/one night/three week/six month stands’ would make me feel or how much I would long to be important to someone. It would seem, these ‘lovely love affairs’ are always ‘nothing serious’ and while I have been travelling around the world, and whisked away with romance, I have also been talking about men’s ex-girlfriends.

A lot.

I have been held long into the night, while comforting men about past, present, or future relationships… with other people. I have been kissed tenderly by men who have made me the ‘other woman’ without my knowledge. And I have had dirty, long weekends smeared with chocolate and champagne with men who were not my boyfriend and never would be.

And there I was.

With you.

For two nights.

In Krabi.

Half way around the world.

And talk.king.exes.

Was this just another one of my short stop bad decisions? Was it the conversation or the cocktails that made me feel a little lonelier?

The boat smashed through the moundy waves, spraying me as I kept a keen eye on the horizon so as not to puke as I have a want to do on boats. And my thoughts continued to wander around. And landed unexpectedly for a moment with my friend Tim.

Tim is older than me. And after a mega serious adult break up, he moved to Berlin. He wasn’t ‘running away’ (a term we railed against for ourselves when describing our overseas adventures), he wasn’t trying to ‘reinvent’ himself or squeeze love out of the situation. He just wanted to discover something else.

Why did we seem so afraid of this ‘something else’?

Tim is one of the most intelligent and grounded people I know, and of course completely mental (a quality you and I had enthusiastically upheld because the most interesting people and partners were always mental). But there we were slamming down conversation and cocktails. Together. In Krabi. And we weren’t embracing our ‘next’. It felt we were caught in acid-like looping in a labyrinth of ex lovers. A type of hell to be sure.

Exes are a terrible topic of conversation.

The boat splashed some more and the water made funny shapes on my t-shirt where my boobs and belly protruded. Like a whacky wet t-shirt competition where I was the only competitor. I thought you’d laugh at this. And I remembered that despite a short melancholic aberration, we had laughed a lot in Krabi.

I let the water splatter my sunglasses and the wind billow my hair to aero- dynamic effect. Here, I wasn’t afraid nor was I sad. Maybe Thailand was good for a person. Maybe our little rendezvous in Krabi was not a mistake – maybe it was just company for two slightly mental people and a lovely moment in time.

Or maybe I was just light-headed from having not eaten anything for 18 hours.

The ferry docked; I disembarked.

I was in a sawngthaew on my way to somewhere when I was told I was on Koh Samui. And not my intended port of Koh Pha Ngan.

I was on the completely wrong island.

Fuck.

Big Buddha pier was the only place the next ferry would leave for Koh Pha Ngan that same day. The ferry would leave at 1:30. It was now 12:30. And Big Buddha pier was on the opposite side of the island. And so it was a race against time of ‘TheAmazing Race’ proportions.

I jumped on a motorbike taxi and we balanced precariously, and admittedly rather dangerously on the bike with my oversized luggage and set off, clock ticking.

Then.

It started to rain.

This was not a saggy, dampening drizzle. This was a tropical storm downpour with big, fat drops smacking against everything and leaving nothing dry.

Yet another of my many mistakes. I thought as my fingers twitched convinced I was not going to make it.

But, soaked to the core, I made it to the pier in time for the next ferry. I made it to Koh Pha Ngan and finally I made it to a longtail where I traveled into the setting sun and turquoise sea, bound for this small slice of paradise.

***

I’m staying in a shack literally on the beach. The sea is warm, the sun not too stingy and the coconuts are fresh.

My beer and dinner are finished. And as I listen to the gentle lapping of the sea against the white sanded shore, I have no doubt you’ll find your wildly adventurous, intelligent and kind-hearted mental woman. She’ll appreciate your gentle, sexy-as super smart brain and she’ll get your jokes (and hopefully you get hers too because otherwise it could get awkward).

We’ve made mistakes Dave, and we’ll probably make them again but mistakes as I’ve learned today – however many or few – lead to an interesting adventure, a good story or just somewhere else – which sometimes, is just as good. And the beer just as sweet.

Chok Dee to that.

Love,

Sarah.

A farewell of sorts

She plugged her headphones into her ears and pressed the triangle on the touch screen of her iphone -

play.

The tinny intro to Slow Show by The National bounced around inside her skull.

You should probably listen to this song as you continue to read:

Ready?

OK. 

She plugged her headphones into her ears and pressed the triangle on the touch screen of her iphone
– play.

The tinny intro to Slow Show by The National bounced around inside her skull.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard Slow Show… and she never realized how tricky it is to say Slow Show repeatedly. 








Slow. 

Show. 

Slow. Show. 


Slowshow.

I think you need to say it out loud three times to understand what I'm talking about. 

See? Tough, huh?

Anyway.

She was standing at the traffic lights, standing with her bags by her side, when a foggy memory passed through her brain:

And there she was, in her mind’s eye, in her one-bedroom apartment in Melbourne, listening to the song, listening to Slow Show, and dancing, alone. 

Wait... 

listen to the chorus of the song... 

"I want  to hurry home to you,

Put on a slow, dumb, show for you,

crack you up"

Memories pass, they overlap each other, you're never sure where one begins or ends, blurred scenes fading from one to another, interchangeable, and moulded ideas of yourself and your story.

Where was I? 

oh yeah

And there she was, in her mind's eye, driving to Ballarat and singing along, singing along to Slow Show as if it meant…

something.

She had wanted to get married to this song.

She wanted to marry this song.

She wanted…
























But that was 10 months ago.














And she wasn't 29 anymore.

"You know I dreamed about you

for 29 years

before I saw you"

The bing bom of the pedestrian crossing broke her reverie and she wheeled her well travelled suitcase across the way. 

                             

She could have sworn she’d forgotten something. She had packed, as per usual, in a hurry. Not because it was a spontaneous trip but because, life just seemed to get in the way of an organized packing schedule. And so, she was leaving, as per usual, a little under-prepared and slightly unfinished.

The traffic signals wore on. Bing bom, bing bom. This was the sound of her first week in Canada. She’d lost her credit card card in Taxco, her make-up bag in L.A., her worries in Tulum, her dignity in London,  and her first iphone in Nicaragua. And so when she arrived in Vancouver, Canada the aural scape of the city was her soundtrack. Bing bom. Broke, unemployed and sleeping on a mattress on the floor of a grimy hostel. She had been lost and lonely in Canada but at least the sun had been shining then. Now, the once steel-blue city, had turned to a smudgy grey-black. The charcoal-ness of Vancouver was only occasionally augmented by the brilliant red of the stopped traffic lights and their speckled reflections on the drenched-wet roads.

It was raining now. 


















It was always raining in Vancouver.

She reached the train station and boarded the train for the airport. She was headed home. Back to a place she’d run from 10 months earlier.

The skytrain pulled away from the station. Sometimes, you could look out over the snow peaked mountains as the train made it’s way downtown. It was a glorious relief and a validation that this city was… 












fine.

If you sigh audibly now you’ll understand how she felt about Vancouver.

But today the mountains were not out. Today the city had pulled a very typical, cruelly dull Vancouvean day and the fog and clouds obstructed the view.

And here she was on the train heading back to Australia. Back to Melbourne. And she was listening to music on her new iphone. It was music that used to make her

feel. 

Something. 

Once, her skin would tingle and her heart would explode, leaving a gaping bleeding hole in her chest. But now, she was reimagining them, making new memories from worn out, overused songs… and feelings. 

As she alighted the train at the airport, that’s when the intro to How to Make Gravy by Paul Kelly bounced around her skull.

You should definitely listen to this song while you continue to read:

And wait... 

for the twang of the slide guitar...

It always reminded her of home. This song.

Of hot Christmases with fish on the table and her cousin George’s laugh filling the room; It reminded her of her parents singing along not knowing the words but making them up anyway.

It was chardies in sun, literally prawns on the bbq and the nasal, wonderfully sweet hubbub of family conversation around her.

And then. She blinked at the wetness in her eyes. Was she crying? Aw gees. That was a bit rich, wasn’t it?

The last time she’d cried on a plane was when she’d left her friends Tim, Luky and Sophie after 5 excellent days in Indonesia together. As the plane took off she suddenly found tears streaming down her face. Perhaps it was the air pressure, but most likely she had cried back then because she knew in this moment something had to change.

Just listen...

...for a moment...

and wait...

for those drums...

She wasn’t crazy about her current job in Vancouver; she lived in what looked like a student dive basement suite; and it took a fair bit to get Canadians in the winter to go beyond polite and towards something that resembled friendship.

But Mexico had changed the colour of her eyes and even though she’d failed miserably at times, things were different. She was different. 

At least she hoped she was.

She’d met a boy who made her feel that things were possible – or at least he laughed at her jokes and she at his and that was enough for now. She had bought a warm Manatoba-winter coat, squeezed the hands of the people she was grateful to know in Vancouver and had had her first white Christmas.

She missed the heat and the beach and the way people swore for emphasis in everyday conversation. But she had etched an outline of a life in Vancouver. And like her ad-hoc packing job – it was as yet unfinished. 




















And so in a way she wasn’t heading home, she was leaving a home...


... of sorts.

The End