Winter has struck early this year. Yesterday was the coldest May day for yonks. It rained heavily for much of the day, discouraging jaunts out of doors. It is warmer today - just - but misty, with a soft, almost imperceptible, rain that gathers on the surface of your clothes too light to penetrate.
I was out early this morning walking through it all rugged up with a surreal remembrance of the warm, sunny days not so long distant. I stopped at a cafe up the road and ordered breakfast while I made some notes at my table.I had that sense of being present - as I do now at this moment as I remember. I watched the rain fall outside and sipped my tea and listened without thinking to the Polish waitress talk of her home in Krakow. That was then passed now, all all moments pass, as this one now and now and now pass endlessly. This is what went through my mind, the transient nature of experience, how nothing stops and even if it stays it is just in memory.
Afterwards I walked up to Glenferrie road, to the library, and back again. The rain beaded on my coat and from my bag I fetched a beanie I put on my head.
I'm home now and working hard so the time slips away from me. My coat is hanging over the back of a chair and gives off the distinctive whiff of wet wool. I'm at my desk eating pistachio nuts in lieu of lunch, my mind ticking over, my fingers splayed across the keyboard typing as the words occur to me, no end to it really.
I wonder how many hours I spend in front of a computer screen? Too many. Rain or not, I'll be taking a break this afternoon to get out and take in the rain freshened air.
I was on the number 75 tram last night heading into the city, earbuds plugged in looking out the window and blissfully minding my own business when the tram stops, a woman enters and sits across from me. She's a larger woman of about 45 dressed in a short skirt quite inappropriate to the chill of the night, let alone other things. Her hair is slightly wild, as is her manner. She's not a pretty sight and after a glance I turn back to the window and my music.
After a few moments I had the odd sense that I was being observed. I peered from the corner of my eye and saw the woman staring fixedly at me. I turned my head casually, sweeping past her towards the tram door and then back again. She's still staring at me with particularly beady eyes. Our eyes lock and I'm thinking of something to say when she starts in.
I miss the first few words yanking the earbuds from my ears. Then as she continues on I struggle to make much sense of anything she is saying. It's as if I'm come in late on a particularly complex and melodramatic play. There's no-one there to ask what have I missed so I gamely focus on her, struggling to catch the thread of what appears a vitriolic harangue.
Then some words register. "I knew I'd bump into you again," she had said. There is a bitter satisfaction in her voice, as if pleased to have her foresight rewarded. Oh Lucifer, we meet again, that sort of thing - and I'm Lucifer.
It appears I'm definitely Lucifer in her world, if not someone worse. She continues on, her eyes blazing and the words tumbling from her higgedly-piggedly as reading from a long memorised but strangely incoherent script. I gather as she goes on that I - or my alter-ego - have done all sorts of wrong. Sex is brought up as if I have been spreading my devilish seed and causing all sorts of wanton ruin to the virtuous. Then she refers to astrology and something about Aries, as if it had been all in the stars regardless, though I have even committed some crimes against astrology also.
I wonder how I must have appeared as she continued her rant. Did my mouth hang slackly open? Did I blink rapidly in confusion? I know at some point I vainly tried to tell her she had the wrong guy, but quickly realising it was pointless shut up (never argue with drunks, women or crazy people). Then she stops, as if there is nothing more to be said. Hard to flap I put the earbuds back in and return to staring obliviously out the window.
A couple of minutes later she starts in again. Ever polite I remove the earbuds once more. This time she is more affable, explaining how "me and Trev and you and your pappy" should go to Europe together soon. She tells me - I think, it wasn't clear - of a beautiful dress she wants to show me. She goes off on another tangent then something about being fucked up by my mother. By this time I'm glancing about me looking for the hidden camera. This is a joke right? I've been punk'd right?
Then she abruptly stands and walks away, muttering under her breath. I sit their bemused. Across the way a guy is smiling at me having witnessed the performance. He makes a universal gesture poking his finger between thumb and forefinger and it takes me a moment to realise he's asking if she was a prostitute. It's possible of course, she had the wardrobe, but I reply with a gesture of my own: the circling finger around the ear. He nods his head, ah, perfectly clear now.
Don't know if it was a full moon last night, but there are a lot of nutters around these days.
I'm an advocate for metric time, which is long overdue. As it stands I don't have enough hours in the day. I reckon if we went to 30 hours a day I might be right.
What I need at some point is a PA. God knows it would help greatly if there was someone who could manage just half of the 101 things I have to do every day. I'm open to the concept in theory, but I'm such a control freak I'm not sure how well it would work in reality. You have to let go, but I'm so precious about what I do and the brand I put to the world that, right now, it's just too big a mental leap. That's something I must overcome unless the metric week comes, or I clone myself.
Tonight I'm off to an entreprenuers night out - a few drinks in a groovy bar, some very interesting speakers and, I expect, some pretty dynamic people.
Right now I'm off for a cup of tea - then some tinkering with the website, a blog post for it, a webinar on writing online content, fill in a couple of forms, then...mmm, what? Perhaps I should get myself ready for the tram ride into the city.
Because we were all busy yesterday one way or another we had a Mother's Day dinner on Saturday night. We went to a family-friendly Mexican restaurant down Swan Street way which was typically boisterous. The boys argued, Schae wandered around, mum drank too much, my sister played mediator and I either teased the boys and Schae, or tuned out. Amid the activity and the food there were the usual sort of conversations, often led by mum. On one occasion she somehow got to talk about bullying and how she hoped the boys would bnever abide it. And then she told a story about me.
I'm at the stage of my life when I tend to roll my eyes at the stories told of me as a kid. I've heard most of them a couple of hundred times, though mum never tires of repeating them - often to the girls I'm with. On Saturday night she told a story I had almost forgotten. I'll record it here because it is part of my history and I should do so before I forget it again.
When I was a kid I was cute as a button. I was teachers pet a few times because I was cute and smart and maybe a little cheeky. I also had an attitude that belied my looks. My first school was Thornbury Primary School. At that time the great majority of students there had Italian, Greek or Lebanese parents. Skips were in a minority, and a kid like me with fair-skin, freckles and reddish-brown hair stood out like the proverbial sore thumb.
I don't know if that obvious difference influenced my behaviour, but I already had runs on the board. At kindergarten I was the first kid to ever get under the building, and it was quite an effort to extract me. At school I was one of the tougher kids, not averse to the rough and tumble of the playground and, to be honest, quite happy to exert my will on those less determined.
Then on one day - I must have been no more than 6 or 7 - I was walking home from school when I spotted a kid from my year being set upon by a group of other kids. He was not a kid I had much to do with - he was a little plump and clearly unathletic, always neatly dressed I can't look back now without somehow associating him with Humpty Dumpty. Even all these years later I can see him clearly, and that first moment remains vivid. The kid - Keith Chambers as mum recalled so clearly on Saturday - was a born schoolyard victim: a little soft and uncertain, clever, but without the protective veneer needed to get by ruthless kids.
I was different, clearly so it seems now, though I knew no better then. It was instinct then, or some automatic response that drew me into the fray. I don't recall thinking about it, and I doubt a second thought crossed my mind. What happened next is strangely vague to me, but it became clear that I saved Keith and earned his undying gratitude. Did I fight the other kids? Probably - it's certainly the sort of thing I would have done.
That night my mum received a call from Keith's mum. Keith had obviously told the story and his mother had called to thank me. We were invited over, and went. Doubtless there was some heartfelt gratitude expressed to me, but I don't recall that. Rather I recall the happy Keith taking me into his confidence and showing me his Barrel of Monkey's (big then), which I was intrigued by.
That was the story my mum told Saturday, or an abbreviated version of it. Most of it went over the kids head, but I found myself ruminating on it as a lost fragment come back to me. Mum told the story to explain how bullying should not be tolerated, and that's a very worthy point to make. I wonder though how much of that was in my head back then. Was I so virtuous? I think my motivation was more straight-forward - a kid I knew was outnumbered by kids I didn't know. My intervention was based on evening up an unfair contest and, I think, a hunger for the battle. Even then I was combative.
I wonder what has become of Keith? He'll have done well I think, steering his way between conflicts to make a respectable career and to raise his own family. I wonder if he remembers the day I came to his aid?
Masterchef is back on the teev again. I know because people are posting updates about o Facebook, and the conversation if you're not careful veers into familiar discussions about the latest contestants. It's not a conversation I'm part of as I'm one of the few who have not got into the show. In a way that's strange since I am such a keen foodie, but I've generally explained that I'm too busy to commit to the exhaustive programming of the show. True enough, but there are other reasons also.
I have caught the odd show here and there, so know what it's all about. And the show's popularity and influence has been so pervasove that I have been aware if only distantly of the lastest permutations and controversies as if by osmosis. Though I've not been part of the conversation I have on occasion been able to throw in the odd copnversational tidbit.
I watched it again last night, almost by accident. Searching for something to occupy me I came across it and find myself caught up in the trials and tribulations the show puts its contestants through.
I was not surprised to find it compelling TV. That's the rap after all, and on the few occasions I've watched previously it's not boredom that kept mefrom coming back. You put a bunch of ambitious, desperate people in a theatrical environment, pit one against the other while the chefs judging, like gods on Olympus, contrive challenges for their supplicants. There's drama aplenty, as well as lots of food - what's not to like?
Well, something. I switched off at the end of it thinking I won't be watching again. It was like I had eagerly tucked into a delicious meal only to find something was a little off with it. That's what I think about the show - it's a little off. Clearly I'm very much in the minority view.
What I dislike about Masterchef is what I dislike about all reality shows. I hate the voyeuristic impulse that draws society to watch the dramas and frequent humiliations of those brave enough to enter the fray. I hate the contrivance of it, how clearly it is manufactured to create those moments of controversy or high drama that brings in the big ratings points. Ultimately I hate how the individual is subverted to commercial pragmatism - and hate what it says about our society that we flock to this our nose pressed to the glass eager for the latest manufactured triumph or tragedy.
Masterchef is probably more benign than most reality shows, but there still feels something Big Brother-ish about it (and I mean that in the sense of Orwell's book, as well as the tiresome program). It's like we the people are being fed this pap to entertain us, a modern take on Lions versus Christians. It's a plaything, a diversion, mental mush.
Strange also that for a innately competitive person I find the ten little Indians approach tacky. I know that many of these contestants will become household names, will be lauded, and are generally treated well within the confines of the show. Still, they are pawns in the drama, and the drama comes first. They are individuals, people who have screwed up their courage and ambition to take the punt, they deserve to be respected for that regardless of their cooking talent, rather than elements to be exploited for dramatic effect.
This was brought home to me powerfully last night in the last minute or so of the program. It was an elimination, 24 were being whittled down to 12. Three were asked to step forward in the last batch of six. The chef told them they were out of luck and they visibly deflated, before going on to add they would have to put their lives on hold because they had made the cut.
Here is the program in miniature. One moment hopes and dreams are dashed, the next realised, at least for now. Well, that's good for them, but what of the three standing behind them? Their experience was the opposite - one moment they dared to believe, the next made to realise their belief was foolish. This is cruelty in the service of TV ratings - and we lap it up.
Which brings me to the chefs and food critics judging on Masterchef. I love my food. I love eating out. I love reading about it. It's a big part of my life - and yet I wonder when chefs become celebrities. They are placed on a pedestal by virtue of their ability to whip up a top meal. Well, that's impressive and much valued, but it is another job. The Greek gods allusion is apt I think. Their word is gospel, their mien often imperious, they give, they take, and generally become more self-important by the minute.
I'm not going to be able to avoid Masterchef, and I have no real intention to. In the end it's no big deal one way or another - if people choose to submit to this, and others to watch it then fine. It's not for me though. I like my TV more honest.
For a political animal I write little on political affairs. In large part that can be attributed to the sour taste political discourse has left me with. I hate to be cynical, but find it hard not to be in these very calculating days. It's a cop-out, but it's enough that I have to live with it - and so, by and large, I choose not to write about it, and even consider it if at all possible.
That's not possible. I may be disenchanted but I'm no less idealistic. I continue to read the newspapers cover to cover, continue to dip my toe into more intelligent political discussion, continue, as ever, to hold strong opinions. And I continue to think deeply about all that happens around me. If I write less then it is often because I am taking time to process the variety of inputs; to formulate end of day my own opinion on events rather than accepting the pre-digested perspectives on offer from tabloids and popular media commentators.
This is important to me. Though I incline in one direction I don't want to be defined by that. I take each issue on its merits and run it through the experience and knowledge and undeniable bias I have accumulated. I aim to be rational and objective, and achieve some measure of that. I am not immune to the personal, but that's what makes us human. Overall I think I have a set of pretty well-balanced opinions that are unique to me: they are mine, and not the words of others.
Still, with the modern propensity to labels I am said to be part of the left-wing intelligentsia. I belong to the vocal minority - apparently - that holds humanistic values to be precious, whether they apply to people, social policy, the environment, etc. It's a vague, amorphous school of thought that reluctantly and with some reservations I accede to. Mea culpa.
I am not shoulder to shoulder though. I believe in general, but disagree often on nuance and emphasis, and occasionally on fundamental principles. It's because I think for myself and have not accepted the primacy of official dogma.
This is preamble to a slightly adjusted perspective on the asylum seeker question here in Oz. Like my comrades I have been vocal in decrying the injustice and mistreatment of these poor souls seeking a better life in Australia. As a general view I have always held to a vaguely Christian premise that the strong should help the weak. The determination of these people arriving in rickety boats not long from sinking has always impressed me. If they are so desperate to risk the life of their families then how bad must life have been where they came from?
Countering this has been a number of fatuous arguments trotted out by the government of the day - Howard mainly, but taken up by the weak Labor government since. Their mantra has been protecting our borders, as if we were subject to invasion by thousands of undesirable foreigners, and "we'll choose who comes to our country". It's been a blatantly political line not far short of being racist which, skilfully played, has resonated with much of the Australian electorate. I believe it's called dog whistling, which has become a staple of Australian politics since.
This has been the excuse to pack these unwanted immigrants into detention camps where they may fester for years waiting to be processed. This is in fact what prompts my post today.
Recently at the detention centre at Villawood, in Sydney, a number of these asylum seekers revolted against the system. They set things alight and a bunch of them clambered onto the roof refusing to eat until they gained asylum. One can imagine the desperation that led to this, but it has been a public relations disaster for the detainees. And it made me think further.
I was surprised to find that I too frowned upon these actions. I dismissed the small voices of public service minions speaking against the detainees as being irrelevant. I had no doubt that the detainees had perfectly reasonable complaints against the system, which is an abomination. Yet in the pit of my stomach where you live it felt somehow wrong.
There is much more than justice and mercy to be considered when looking upon this situation. It is too simple, too formulaic, to view it through such a narrow perspective. As I well understand it is easy to use angry and emotive terms when describing the events and the causes leading to them. Many are justified. But it is not anger or emotion that will resolve the impasse we have lived with for many years. And the situation is much more complex than that.
The one really good argument against taking in asylum seekers was the 'queue jumpers' label oft-used by the government. If we let in these people, they claimed, then others who have legitimately applied to enter the country will be denied. The other argument, again with some sense to it, that is if we accept illegal immigration then we validate the illegality, we encourage the mercenary interests of people smugglers, and run the risk of being inundated. We need to oppose if only to be seen to oppose.
Then there is the complexity which comes in the shape of culture. There is much to admire in such determined people. With such qualities they would likely be vital and industrious citizens. It is other aspects which are more troubling. When some detainees sewed their lips shut in protest against government policy it is was horrifying. When they did it to some of their own children it was barbaric. While we accept diversity, that behaviour is foreign to our culture, as it should be. Is this what we want?
Ultimately it is our culture to which if granted they will enter. We welcome the diversity of views and vibrancy of their customs, which have made Australia a greater place. I don't ask for complete assimilation, but there must be some understanding of the culture they have entered, and respect for what they have been given.
Government policy is clumsy and often inhumanely enacted. The immigration process seems bureaucratic to almost Kafka-esque proportions. We can do much better. Yet we are a democratic country. We will give shelter - even if it is not as friendly or openly granted as the likes of me would like. People come to us because we have what they don't have at home. I think that's what I felt in my stomach as I saw these detainees set alight their quarters. Hello I thought, I understand your frustration, but at least you are safe here, protected by law and likely to find a future. We may be clumsy, but, notwithstanding government rhetoric, are not without decency. It is our culture to take you in, to give you the opportunity to thrive in safety and without persecution. We are good people. Hard as it may be, meet us half way, understand and appreciate the promise of what we have to offer you.
We do have to find a better way, and have to divorce the question of asylum seekers from political rhetoric.That conversation needs to be changed and some common-sense introduced. Australia gets a fraction of the illegal immigrants Europe gets, and the 5-7,000 annually aren't really a lot. Certainly not an invasion as the likes of Tony Abbott and other low-lives like to portray it.
I don't pretend to have all the answers, but I often wonder why the Australian government does not set up processing centres abroad, in the hotspots of Asia. Everyone then can be legal, no queue is jumped, and the need for people smugglers eliminated. Do foreign governments object? I would have thought it would work to their benefit.
Osama bin Laden, you might have heard, is finally dead. The news was excuse enough for headlines and news stories for days after, as well as much rejoicing and not a little self-congratulation. All very natural really, and reasonable, though the death of bin Laden is nothing more than symbolic these days.
For a long time now bin Laden has been the most wanted, and most hated man in the world. There have been a long list of tyrants through the last century who deserved such a description even if it never actually applied to them: Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, even Robert Mugabe right now, amongst countless others. Bin Laden deserved his place among them even if he believed his actions were in a noble cause, as he seems to have done (and millions more have agreed), the inspiration for a Muslim crusade against western hegemony.
Having travelled far and through societies unknown and barely considered by the 'western' world it is easy to understand how such resentment may brew. Western culture - everything from coca cola, Dallas and Facebook - has a way of usurping and overwhelming native cultures. It is a consequence of the global village that barriers that once kept cultures reasonably pure have come crashing down. It is economic nature that with barriers dismantled that what rushes in is what was lacking.
This is not the fault of western society or culture, much as some fanatics blame. Western culture may be fatuous often - hard to deny - but it is democratic, an unthinking beast that travels in the minds who belong to it and infects those looking to be infected. These hardline Muslim clerics may claim this as a kind of curtural corruption, and once more it easy to see that point of view, but it is not the fault of the west, nor of the cultures it finds it's way into. It is human nature and economics, and the power of 21st century media.
One can't really blame people for seeking to preserve their cultural integrity. We may universally condemn terrorists for their acts these days, but wars have been fought on similar motives. What has changed is that the west - and the US particularly, standard-bearer for what the 'west' represents - has become so omnipotent, so powerful, that conventional war is no longer feasible. Instead desperate fanatics use what they have and conduct a guerrilla war with terror at it's core. The events of 9/11 are horrifying, and the prospects of terrorism are truly, well, terrible, but despite the occasional act of terror and the press it receives the war is futile, the occasional victories pyrrhic. Taking on the west is like taking on tanks with bow and arrows.
I suspect many in terrorist organisations understand that, but I suspect also that acceptance of the fact is beyond them. To strive even if futilely is their reason, especially given a glorious heaven awaits on the martyrs death.
It is for this reason that the death of Osama bin Laden is no more than symbolic - though it is powerful, cathartic, symbolism. In practical terms the war he began had moved far beyond him. His 'contribution' is historical - with that one bold act upon the US he proved that the powerful can be made to feel pain. He gave hope and inspiration to the millions who to that point had little idea that they were disaffected. He was the spiritual progenitor of the war that came to be; he set them buzzing, but it was Bush who kicked the hornets over, Bush in his clumsy overkill who gave cause ultimately to that disaffection.
The death of bin Laden is no more than a great headline in the war on terror. It won't stop anything, and may even be the cause for an upsurge. Still, it can't be denied as some kind of just act. That's reason enough; and reason enough that a people might be given some solace knowing the man who cause so much misery and grief is now punished for it. None of that can be denied, though celebrations, natural as they are, may be premature and just a little tacky.
As a footnote it's interesting to read how some are claiming the legality of killing bin Laden. I always find arguments such as these amusing and just a little ridiculous. It is a mark of our society that we ask these questions, but it seems a little specious. I understand how in a civilised society we need boundaries and be governed by the rule of law if we are not to descend into barbarism. Applying such standards of decency to war however seems a grey area at best. Something like the Geneva Convention is perfectly necessary, even if it seemingly contravened with impunity, but any state of affairs where one group of people shoot at another group of people with intent to kill seems almost outside of civilisation even given it has been such a historical constant.
The death of bin Laden appears unseemly by the reports I read - unarmed, as was his wife, but deemed a threat and so killed. If it happened on the streets of Melbourne there would be an inquiry. It didn't happen here though, and bin Laden was no drug crazed desperado. If it counts for anything I'm sure he'd prefer death to imprisonment. Politically his death was the only real option for the west also. And ultimately he died in the midst of battle, the man responsible for the deaths of countless thousands is gone. Who can reasonably mourn that?
What do you think about dreams? I've having a shitload recently - or rather I'm remembering a shitload more dreams than usual. I go through patches like this which makes me wonder if there are external factors making it so. Are there things happening - or not happening - in my life that bold my dreams?
The dreams I'm having are the usual variety. Some are weird; some are utterly prosaic. Most feature people I know, but some don't. In some dreams there are people long forgotten, or deep in my past suddenly featuring. Some dreams seem significant, and some don't.
I love having dreams, and I'm always wary of them. I'm inclined to believe that there is occasionally little - and maybe great - truths revealed in our nocturnal wonderings. I've written before of how I think there is often more wisdom in our unconscious than our conscious. Our body knows what our civilised, conscious mind does not.
Some of the dreams I've had lately have been very vivid. I slept on Saturday night in Brunswick Heads with the rain falling down and in an unfamiliar bed and the dreams were in technicolour. I remembered little of them when I woke in the morning but what who was in them. That was interesting enough for me. I lay in bed touched still by what I had dreamt and ruminating on the last lingering sentiments wondering if they meant anything, or not. I was inclined to think then that they meant plenty, but that was in the full flush of feeling. Why not? I thought. For an hour or so I was inclined to act on what I had dreamt. What did I have to lose?
It's a good question and the answer is, very little. That doesn't make it right though. To act on the basis of what is to gain or lose seems pretty shallow, though obviously it's a popular way of deciding. It's not about me though, not about what I have to lose or what I have to gain. If there's more than one person involved then it's about what is right.
Right, as I've so often pontificated, is not always easily recognised. I'll wait for my next set of dreams to tell me what.
Friday afternoon I flew up to the Gold Coast. It was sunny in Melbourne, but by the time we flew into Queensland airspace the sky was dark with huge rain-clouds, lit occasionally by a flash of lightning. On the tarmac we sat for 10 minutes waiting for the worst of it to subside and for the ground-crew to attend to us. My ride was late because of the weather, and when it arrived finally the journey down to Brunswick Heads was through driving rain such as Noah must have experienced. Every moment or two the sky would be lit from horizon to horizon by the flash of lightning, followed soon after by foundation shaking thunder.
I had booked myself into a regular motor inn. I was up for the wedding of an old friend, and we had tentatively arranged to catch up that evening. The rain changed that. Days of torrential rain meant that the ceremony had to be shifted from a park to the reception venue. Caught up in the rain and all the extra work the get-together was aborted.
Even with the rain I was feeling antsy and restless, unwilling to sit in my plain hotel room. I wandered up the road during a break in the weather and had a beer at the local pub. Afterwards I sat by myself in a cool little Indonesian restaurant chatting with the waitress.
On another night when the weather was more friendly I'd have found my way to Byron for a night out - it was Friday after all. The weather dampened those plans, literally. I ended up back in my room while it was still early. I flicked on the TV and had the choice of the royal wedding or some rugby league. I chose rugby. I browsed a magazine before finally watching an SBS movie with the usual full frontal nudity.
It was sunny the next morning. I found my way to the main drag and sat down to an over-priced by delicious brunch. Sitting there the sunshine briefly made way for another brief downpour. I dressed for the occasion back in my room and then made my way to the caravan park, where my lift awaited me.
It had been arranged that I would be driven to the meeting point by my mate's family. I knew from before, though had not seen them for many years. I was greeted like an old friend and made very welcome. I recalled then what a lovely family I thought they were, and felt very comfortable catching up on old times as if we had met many times before.
We drove to Mullumbimby where we hopped on a brightly painted double-decker bus hired for the occasion. We drove up into the low hills and were deposited to be collected by a minibus to take us up the narrow, winding roads to the reception venue.
It was breathtaking. I use that term advisedly, knowing how loosely applied it can be (and recalling the famous Seinfeld episode about the 'breathtaking' baby...). In actual fact my breathing didn't pause, but as did everybody else, I paused to take in the vista.
It somebody's home beneath which on the slope had been built a space to hired out for functions. Perched on the side of a steep hill the outlook was of a thickly vegetated valley and the hills and escarpments rising up beyond it. In the distance one could see the sea, and in between here and there signs of habitation. A thin mist hung about the rocky escarpments, and in one place a thin wisp of water could be discerned as the rain made an impromptu waterfall down the rugged face of the hills. (Thin Red Line was filmed in QLD, north of here I think, but it reminded me of the landscape in that).
Then in the middle of the afternoon a simple, authentic and very Byron Bay wedding ceremony took place. It was lovely. I met the bride for the first time afterwards, and caught up with my mate. Later we ate an all vegetarian menu, there were funny speeches, nice speeches, dancing, singing, lots of drinking and all the rest of it. I had a fine time. The people were all very nice and mostly very interesting.
Next day, feeling a little tired, we went up again for brunch. It was a sunny, warm day. Told we had to bring our own food and craving some meat we bought a couple of barbecued chickens and some bread rolls in town. We were told if we were going to eat that then we better do it outside. Ok-ay.
Furthermore a few of us were enrolled to scrub ash stains from the marble pavers left by the burning braziers the previous night. What fun! For about 45 minutes dressed in my going home clobber I scrubbed at these dark marks with an old broom while someone wielded a gurney and another dripped bleach on the tiles.
Ultimately I headed home a little weary, sweaty, and a tad burned. My lift was a voluble and very interesting guy looking forward to touring the States with Paul Oakenfeld as his warm up DJ. I listened making the odd sensible comment, but otherwise slowly blending into the car upholstery. I'd had an interesting weekend, had caught up with an old friend at an important time for him, had met some interesting people, had got away from my usual surroundings and enjoyed it, but now was looking forward to home.
Funnily enough it was raining when I touched down. I drove home through the rain and turning into my street thought how it was to be here. For all the outstanding beauty of Byron and surrounds, the attitude and artistic expression, Melbourne is still very much home.
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