Aussie day – forgot about already. Remember Cronulla, think logically – leads to Trump. Can people everywhere understand? Do they really think it’s good?
Good sleep – forgotten dreams. It’s okay, body stronger, brain stronger. Love life. Love reading, love music, love clean air – where is it? Where is the rain?
Gratitude Journal
I am so happy and grateful for the jukebox in my head, the settings and times in there are the soundtrack of my life.
A bit more subdued today though I did many things. I got a bit annoyed at the students again and sent some video of students playing on their phones in class to Kru Tongjai – when she replied ‘What happened?’ I thought I would try to understand why the situation is the way it is rather than try to fix it. So I told her not to worry about it and that the problem is my way of thinking. I need to accept that I can’t really help the students much more when they have many different factors to contend with going against them. Teaching methods, lazy teachers, parents etc etc.
So, do I just resign myself to having fun in class and not worry about the students? It’s annoying for me because many students are smart enough to understand that their education is woeful. Oh well.
The best thing about today was finishing Notes From Underground. So good. I’m not sure what it all means to me but I could identify lots within the text – whether it was related to me of to other people.
I still have many thoughts and feelings about George that I hope I can express here sometime. They are not clear but starting to have some definition. I have just been acting as normal with everyone but George seems a little off and I’m not sure if it is relative to me or something else going on. He doesn’t start any conversation with me at all now and I always have to push for any kind of talk.
When I have no self-doubt I feel fine but other times when my self-belief is low I wonder what is going on. I just need to be.
Back up the Central Coast on Tuesday for another job interview for Broni at a private hospital set in beautiful surroundings all landscaped in with the bushland, just a two minute walk to the shiny blue lake and a ten minute drive to the beach, wow! If we could live up here it’d be cool! Its a bit of a fogey area but there are some better spots to live nearer the beach so I could practice being a beach bum, learn to surf and write great novels based on old surf folklore!
We came back home to find a regret letter from Newcastle hospital so that has cut our options down even more, so we’re wondering whether to stay here or go to the Central Coast. In our typical ‘we’ve got no money, let’s go spend it’ style we head out to Indian, still not as good as in England, and get drunk and stoned before crashing out.
Up and at them in the morning and off to the beach again, well, why not? Back down to Cronulla Beach again, there’s a bit of a breeze blowing through our hair and keeping the temperature down a touch, though the sun is scorching through our milk screen. The water is freezing to first touch and it takes us an age to get in to our knees but once that far the ferocity of the water crashes up to our hips before dashing back out again preparing for another attack. Once in it gets better and moving around keeps you warm.
The surf is really up today what with the wind and the tide, waves crash down and throw people five and ten feet backwards and then attempts to suck them back out again. Oh, the majesty of nature and it’s terrific forces, stuck in it’s vortex is like an honour but also a danger, Broni heads out, too rough for her liking, she prefers the gentle lapping of a quiet sandswept beach somewhere. Me, with my new waterwings want to be engulfed in the whitewash of crashing wild water, actually I didn’t really want to be engulfed in it but had no choice when jumping into a wave that crest over my head and then pushed up onto the beach leaving me reeling and writhing in the white foam til the power subsided and I’m left stranded and dishevelled on the sand, wary of more imminent attacks, I get up and orient myself and dive back in, struck by some quirky madness and excitable energy.
People line up and anticipate the waves, a big gasp as someone shouts here comes a big one, spotted about twenty metres out and ominously shadowing the closer crests, as it draws up it’s power from below, your feet are sucked from under you and you realise you have to start swimming inland to catch the wave, but all you see below you is a couple of inches of water and sand, the bulk of water sucked up into the wave that is now over your back and you jump and catch the wave and propelled forwards and then left to scramble to your feet in the whitewash water, a twenty foot section of snowy H20.
As you stand you realise you’ve been sucked across the beach and have to swim along the beach to start again or get out to catch breath but getting out is not so easy with the regular suck at your feet and crash of the waves to knock you down. Back out to warm up and burn in the sun. Awesome.
The two images in this post made me laugh. I know exactly how this kid was feeling.
So after that event we took timeout to recover for a couple of days, but now we’re bugged and have to get a water fix and go up to the pool where I’m improving in speed and stamina, racing Broni and nearly matching, soon beat her! Now half the length of the pool under water, somersaults and handstands, I think it remarkable that just a few months ago I couldn’t swim at all and now I’ve conquered a fear of mine and turned it totally around into something I love and enjoy, what’s next on the agenda?
Ok, we pretty much decide to go and live on the Central Coast and make plans to go and look at houses next week and get some addresses to check out and find something near a beach yeah? We get our first decent Indian meal on Saturday night when we go out with Cathy and I’m starting to feel more relaxed, not so concerned with my internal emotions but more at one with my surroundings, more able to face up to the problems that will come my way and deal with them in an intelligent manner (but i can crack any minute!)
So things are good and on this beautiful Sunday morning I phone up Mark, the guy out of Farm of Tongues that I met last week and have a cool talk with him with some contacts and some possibilities for making some noise in the future with people he knows, he’s going to stay in touch and sounded really pleased to hear from me which makes me feel good that I took the chance to speak to him.
Things are coming together for me and Broni after our long long holiday, who knows maybe get some cheap hack job that’ll get me some money coming in so I can afford all those things I’d like to buy, surfboard, skateboard, mountain bikes, amps, noise machines and a million other things I’d like to get involved in.
Cool, cool, fuckin cool, everything’s cool. Let me finish with my dream I had which was that I was talking to Chrissy and seemed sad and I asked her for a hug and she sensed my worry over the wedding and she said not to worry and that I was marrying the most wonderful girl in the world and then I woke up and held Broni close to me and kissed her, kissed for our humble beginnings, kissed her for today and kissed her for the future.
We make today a special day (oh, very holy) and decide to head to the beach for the first time in this fair land. We look forward to it all day but its about 4 o’clock by the time we get there, heading south to Cronulla, through the bushy suburbs of the city to what seems like the outskirts.
My eyes are stuck to the windows of the train, our usual journey into the city is lined with factories and industry and where it is suburban all the houses are visible, but here all you can see is trees with the odd corners of houses sticking out or braking the skyline. Some houses are built on steep embankments above small tree infested valleys, stilts sticking out of the floor of the construction, going down twenty, forty feet til finding ground to support from.
Over a bridge over a river with a peninsula in the foreground standing high, along the waters edge, small boat buildings and above, up the windy steps, huge houses nestle in the bush, the wealthy cats must hang out there.
Cronulla, last stop on the line, this train terminates. It’s a blistering hot day but the cool breeze is blowing off the sea to the station and we follow our noses to the beach, past a hardcore record shop where skaters hang out outside listening to the music blasting away, what more could you want? It briefly reminded me of Black Flag coming from Redondo Beach, but with a blink my mind was captured by the sight of the beach, beautiful warm yellow sand in a tiny cove lined by slippery slimy rocks which went off one way round the corner and out of sight and the other leading to the main beach, apparently the longest stretch of sand in the area.
We walked round, past ocean baths, swimming pools built into the rocks and watered by the ocean, a safe swim and if you go to the ocean edge of the pool the wave will bash up against the side and over your head. We carried on, to our left, blocks of flats towered on the small cliff but trailed off as we walked round the corner and the sand started again. We laughed and played like kids in the sand and remembered the times we used to go down to the beach after work, with John, when we lived in England, it being a similar time of day (despite the lateness the sun was still high and hot).
We ventured into the water, very slowly, it was freezing to our little hot bodies, slowly letting it envelope us, but after a few metres the waves became bigger and we didn’t have much choice about getting wet. Once in though it began to feel warm, our bodies adjusting. We watched the other kids body surfing, catching a wave and swimming with it and we attempted to imitate them with little success at first but after a while I caught a wave and frightened myself as I was riding this wave, my head was in front of it and all I could see in front of me was bare sand, no water! I was flying along about two feet above the ground, but the wave broke and cushioned my fall to the sand and I got up, huge grin and back out to try it again.
The next time though we were both stood awkwardly and we got dumped, I went under for about five seconds and all I could see was the white wave all around me, when will I come up!? I found Broni and she got hit bad, dragged along the sand on her back and tumbled into a somersault, she retired hurt and slightly embarrassed, but it did make us realise the power of the water.
I went back in and the waves grew stronger and stronger, one minute the water was knocking round your ankles, the next it was too deep to touch the bottom, big waves which we would never see in England, I managed a couple more rides before getting out and drying in the sun as it slowly set over the other side of Australia.
1994ever 