Tuesday, November 10, 2009

On the return to ...

Each of these days is a complete package of reincarnate faith. This day here, I would come to meet Sarah from the edge of our pool, sitting, smoking, alone looking like a curious character. Where had she just come, was not a big question on my mind, but what is she thinking as she sit quiet on the edge of this picnic table. Suppose you could say she was just another one of these wandering minds working their way up and down this trail along the coast. My instincts spoke clearly about this woman, that she was of good nature, and should be given a stream to come sit along. Be that as it should, I did the approach and opened my hand to strange and good nature. We eventually made our way down to Rainbow, so that she could have a time there before heading off to Frasier Island and beyond. We walked up the massive beach line, talking of little significance, but her character was that, I felt similar to mine. We are brought here for different reasons, but still that curiosity behind all the hype that surrounds it, from friends past. She would make her way as far as possible through this country, step by step, and as I connected with her along the way in Sydney a month or two later, she did well. We crossed paths twice in Sydney, and in that time she managed to do the big circle between Melbourne and Darwin. And with, of course, Thailand after the tourist visa expires. It all seems so typical. But for me, it is something that really grabs my attention, no matter how many people have dug their feet across the carpet full of mud. There is little to be excited about as you hear the same sung songs, but still, there is reason for all this. There is something within these parameters, there is a flame burning with energy to take in and grow from. This is why I am here. Not to escape my reality for a few months and smash a few cans on the way. Not to go on vacation a while and see a few sights. Of course without a doubt, not to sit on a bus with a tour guide listening to some antidotes. Part of me sits here wishing to be back on that beach. Not necessarily with Sarah, or anyone else for that matter, but there. I think that this was the time when I really came around inside, the images all started falling into place, and realized how much freedom lay in front of me should I just let it be. Corresponding with the wind, if I could just sit back and sway along with the breeze I could maybe sleep the night of complete peace I’ve been begging for since a young boy. Here, this place, this time, I truly believed that writing could be done. Executed. There could be a satisfaction, and it would not just be some silly project straight out of tenth grade. Here I could have really become a hermit crab and spend my days reading and writing until the mind fell at ease and ready to walk away. Instead I returned to the hostel with Sarah, and we began our dinner and stakes into a box of goon and a night of melodic deviance. Our grey bearded Wiseman sat among a few good men, none of them quite the character of Jack Nicholas but for the last couple days they had become something of family. With the introduction of Sarah we could get along and carry the time like Morris Day. At the table tonight, another one of the beautifully extravagant people I came to walk passed over and over, only to comment on her bell bottom pants smothered in flowers. She looked a bit like my moms sister in her early thirty, only with an easy moving system of endless freedom. A calm, attentive, fluent speaker form New Zealand, gave me all the ins and outs about digging through the fjords, and after dropping an unconscious Sarah off in her bunk, I carried on to their domain and fell into a couple spliffs and song. Though she was a righteous woman, from the same collection of stars, her Sagittarius like motions just aligned in a different collaboration as mine. I could have rapped with this lady for days, but her reading too much, got real old, real fast, and after getting real stoned it was the last thing I wanted to deal with. I woke up in a bed with Sarah, sharing her small space with me, knowing I was without a bunk, Jordii and his crew had gotten round to head off mid afternoon the day before to Harvey Bay, and now it was time for me to get back on the open road and make it back for work in Noosa. I spent the morning in Sarah’s room, as I was no longer a member of the location, on this day or the night prior. We had a nearly lunch breakfast, as mounted up the strength to find some cardboard and get that sign on my hands to head back to work for the weekend, before returning to the cement staircase to a journeyman’s heart, onward to Sydney. I strolled into this café, looking for some cardboard, and the server on duty, mentioned a friend who had just pulled up on her way to the Gold Coast, and ultimately passing through Noosa on the way. What a break. The moment I walked out to this green, boxed up, ripped out van and the young care free lady behind the wheel I knew my week had just ended on the best foot possible.

Diggin the Rainbow

This walk down the road from ‘Frasier’s’ to the beach, you have to pass through the main street of this quiet town to reach the heart. There are a couple handfuls of shops, a hotel, and that is about it. A place where people can hide quite easily, a sock tuck sort of security, but the beauty only a few minutes walking, takes little perception to see why one might consider the gateway through to this homage. I can confidently say that beaches are not exactly my main draw for escape or settling busy undertones. Beaches always grab me in the way a swimsuit edition magazine or a fashion show runway lane. It’s a whole bunch of objectified women used as posted to sell by-products through sexual advertising. If there were any other type anyhow. Reason for mentioning this ‘sexual’ outlet, the fact is, since being here, most of the energy I get comes from the flaunting of body and the skins shade. Back in Canada, our beaches, I’m sure might have the same situation, but I never fell in when everyone else did. And on Vancouver Island, the beaches are home to beachcombers, and desperate surfers with no other means to feed their temptations. Fire pit full of fireflies and fire fairies, acoustic disco dancing, minds mixing and melding, a pot steams with sauce that drips tongue saliva to a floor like sweat. Everywhere I turned the whole system has been blown out of its atmosphere and whatever individualism that existed had burned up coming into the earths face. Until I stepped foot to this remarkable place had gone unnoticed to the trendy drunk dialer.

The walk up was a great experience where I met people in a period of five minutes from maybe five different countries. Still there were very few people around. More that came, looked and then returned to where they had come from, smitten on a ‘plan’ they had forged long before this arrival to silence and peace. The beaches sand was no exceptional story that I heard from places like Whitehaven at Whitsundays, but the water, the oceans sparkling glacier water appearance, gave this crystal image and feeling that it could only taste as pure as it seemed to look. Walking through this waters edge, the temperature was somewhere around the same as bath water. A massive hot tub with a sandy dune background flashed with the rustic appearance of Planet of the Apes. This long stretch of terrain which bends from both ends, in its namesake shape seems much shorter than in its reality. Once going I could walk forever along this line where ocean meets earth, and the elements are in their fairest state. Here is nothing like the shore lines near Sooke, where there we hermit crabs hiding under rocks getting their little pools of salt water to bathe as residue. Here there were some Blue Bottles, jelly fish, which for the most part are harmless, but when in fractured, can sting a smidge. After months of investigation, where some of the days brought force details of delight, I had finally found the right state of grace, that place that caught me by ultimate surprise, where I could be hit by tremors of vigorous sensations running around the air to grab and install. Unable to detach in Noosa, where, its basic formula is just for that. Being in a constant way of uncertainty and struggle, the rope could not quite unleash to where I need be. But here, the pulse slowed to a calm, swell that lay just over your face without a tug or pull. Where I had been just five days earlier, I could not understand why it was so hard the months past to really just let it fall and feel, and it seemed like the whole trial and scale just evaporated to the spirits grasp, uplifted to a place where I was no longer in need of it. As I found my home sitting along the foot of this oceans bed, knowing it could be hours of entrapment, had the journal, and a desire to let my hands do the talking for a while. The sky, bluer then I could have ask for, and if I was any more a doer, would have returned for the sunset, but its good when its good, not when its forced. Let nature arise to your front door, and bring songs of freedom, such as those from the lips of Mr. Marley. All around me there were places that drew for my attention. This fantasy place, a hut, with a small Caribbean bar serving free double Bombay and tonics any time of day, the sun is always alive and well, but never burning the retinas leaving donations of Cancer, which I had come to find a possibility a few months earlier, living careless and under a fools quake proof roof, never been road tested. Here many works could be settled, many artists would find their force, a mechanism would spring forth and the pheromones of faceless facets would find their fingers in our hair, melting butter to a sponge, soaking the silk straight out of filth, breaking free an oppressors repetitive interpretations, for a divine thought to see its way out the core.

With all this positive moisturizer foaming out from the form brought forth out these crystal blues, after all the riveting spins of a hamsters wheel on a bed of sand in the sunny breeze in heavens basement, with the return so passive, so breathless, communicating on a real level with the people around me at the hostel, would transpire only a charge to further amplify this final escape from that painful every day.
When I returned to my room the group from night previous were all gone. Now there sat another crew all setting up their beds for the night. Only to be leaving, as well, the morning after. They were a great group, two from America, a couple from Connecticut, both of them around my age, and both very easy going and satisfied with their current status traveling the whim. There were two young ladies from the U.K, both fresh in Australia from Africa where they were in Tanzania working as volunteers, helping victims of AIDS, with emotional support more so than anything, and whatever else they would need, as the people around them feel out of view in their existence. Mia, right away, I got a positive light from her presence, and felt that regardless of how far this conversation went, being able to come in contact with such a good parallel would only provide a better lift in my day. She was a happy, talkative, understanding, passionate young woman, with dreams and desires. She had been born in Iran, and had spent some time in Tehran, a place I am completely naïve to their religious boundaries, to the every day people. Here is a real test of what it is to live in a kingdom made as a prison, at least for the women. There were also a quiet couple of girls from Germany, and another girl, quite cute, quite short, from Scandinavia. After a while, communicating our highs and lows, general politics between countries and their standard boundaries, we all got together for the all so famous nine dollar dinner. A woman I had met the night before, a Greek from Cypress would join us and get some games going to bring out all that spirit that had been alive and about, along with the boys from Holland, also form the night before, of course Jordii was along with them, with came together for a brilliant flight.

One of the local entrepreneurs at the hostel, a man of aboriginal roots, _________, could be found, pretty much every day outside by the pool, and was there to make didgeridoos, and other aboriginal arts, with interests tourists. He was also very knowledgeable with the sites around the traveling areas, different scenic fantasies you may not have come about otherwise, and a great man to have around to generate action and momentum. He had brought us all together to mission down to Rainbow Beach after the bars closing, around eleven, and have a bonfire, lay in the elements, at last. Though my attention was for the most part, drawn straight to this curious young lady, Mia, everything around me brought a true sense of exquisite escape at last. With people from all around the globe, yet again, all coming together to experience something a little out from the ordinary, we owed it all to our white bearded friend, whose kindness was definably his highest of qualities. ,

This girl, her words, gestures made from a time when chivalry was an endless string of passion, and the whole enactment was little for the product, but a measure for a desirable affection. Drawn into the speech, we were two people without any calculations, merely something so tangled, the wiring from five electricians all came together at one source. For there was no courting throughout these plains of asthmatic winds, there is the simple semantic, where moments are the lifetimes to that one spliff you caught back in tenth grade and rode it long and hard, all through the night, dreaming solely that one sweet fragrance of Mary Jane, only the long road would be one nights work, and the following, cloud stepped forth and moved from pew out of arms grip, still in the faint squinting sphere of a steaming pulse. This quake like many in California, are heard to be much louder then the actual scale. This here was no failed attempt at something of obscenity, this the art of connective tissue, seams that reach out from the naked arm, those heavy shock releasing waves of perpetual ‘fate’. Deem me the continuous victim of coincidence, or let the truth speak its only language, let it comes across the faces of each before another day is over, hitting like brail to the cheek, scraping the wood off the floor of a tired fortress.
Flames shot high, and the voices can be heard in small conversations and circles, people of many accents, each a tail behind them wagging for the next wake of encounter, exhaustion is brought on from a repetitive nature, and something that continues to force black, over boiled spinach down your exasperated esophagus. Its driving madness against the wheel of the car, forcing reckless endangerment, tailgating and the destruction of otherwise likely fair prosper. Here we can either return to the path which was ventured off, or see the universe for questions, dig our retainable homelessness to a ditch and burn any remains,. Here we must each walk quietly passed the ten or twelve questions that follow behind your every step, from prediction. So that and when you come to this place, where this is the time to allow reason for intrigue, where no guidance is needed because the draft was loud enough, strong enough, vibrant and gritty. None prettier then tonight, the one you are, individual, met at a round table, with the thousands of planets and stars and moons smoothing the passage.
This man who brought us all here, and did so for many others already been through the small town and its green leaf community of hope seekers, living not for age to find wisdom, but to forever value its youth, and in turn take life ofr adventure on the road to wisdom. Jordii, and Xena from Cypress, a few others, all leaving behind something, or someone to have the hand open for escape. Change. No math equation to do with money, but a symbiotic fortune that bring an indiscriminate value to an otherwise, well potentially, day without volume. Here to tear out the bottle that qnother world loves us to hibernate within. The gasps are released, and out here, on this beach, especially, you breathe a freedom that cause a tragic Tibetans cry to tear, one that some of us steal so easy worshiping a rule that applies only to install fear and a belief system of mere coincidence. On this night I dined with a table full of incredible students, as I listened, and spoke amongst, I learned a many valuable thing that I can hold but may not show a jury of peers. These felt like people I knew for more then a handful of years, and I really felt like it was where, I was supposed to be.

On our way home, finishing the few bottles that remained, before reaching the source materials back at the station, one of our comrades turned out to be a young local with ties to the pie shop which, turns out opens quite early to begin its day, and around four in the morning when we came to its back door, we were without problem handed fresh pies, and bread to share with our mates back at the poolside. Mia and her young friend and traveling companion were meeting us back at the pool, along with Jordii, a true patriot amongst the Dutch regimes. Well past the hour for goon, at moments of weakness, the poison reaches deep inside and raises from the belly a treacherous force that has been fed so well over many years already. Some could say it may as well be a point of no return and the bar of reason falls flat on my feet. One step back and a loose brick shot the world around from under me, mid air with gravity doing its work my head met the edge of a wall, stacked high with red brick. The fall came hard and fast and the rest would live to be history. A black screen was brough down and while the movie was held to a halt, I was carried by our lovely girls to the room we all shared and they got me strapped in for nest. Like I said, mates from years past, not a second thought to leave me to sleep against that high concrete until the cold morning dew took a look at me and struck my heart.

another forthright step to the world i inherited flying the Pacific

Dialing the predictive text of every day allegations, a chef who wants to be a chef above the bar, working as a cook, in a high end model An Australian Hub at Sunshine Beach. The views around Noosa are like nothing I would ever imagine living in. It’s funny how little you realize, how fortunate, until you leave and have, no longer, that special place. Still, it’s not far away.
It has been a few weeks since heading north to Cairns, and getting caught in those awful cyclones. Though the journey was severed at the hip before it formed to a full image of the sight before seen, what took place was still something I would not give back for all the sheep in New Zealand. What would a man do other then flea with a foot been caught by the disease of discovery. And with all the predictable landmarks in the area, what other option could there be.

Frasier Island, the played out four wheeler beach banger. It’s no giant party but instead an eight person construction site of all the things this island away from everything else has come to employ. An environmental life force, sustaining a principal foundation although it has found itself alone, fending for a future, flaunted by the countryman’s view of cash business. Here the young people fortunate enough to experience it, got a chance to lay out under the stars and really see the sky above. Here they were given the chance to spend a night or two camping, outdoors, if you can believe it, lying out on the ground, surrounded by the people that two days from now would be their own temporary best friends. I can say for myself that this foreseen adventure is just not what I’m looking for. Although from the thousands of people I have passed, that have been satisfied, I am sure it would have been a great spectacle. Something to tell the folks I suppose. Yet, my words bring another situation to hand. This word ‘Adventure’, this is not necessarily why I am out on this highway either. But the comforting voice of a stranger, the spiritual growth of indecision, and the fractured force of nature with its grip of man and his menace.
Well, I had decided that it was time to seek out this place, Rainbow Beach, and see what the deal is. I was weeks from leaving the scene of Noosa, to head south towards Melbourne, and with the head chef at Alegria packed against a wall from the downspin of recession, and its realities, there was a week of time where I had no place but to wait for the weekend. It was to be my last weekend, before heading off south, and it was to be one last chance at something of my own desire, and dimension.

The day prior to leaving was Aussie Day, and well, though I had no true connection with this particular day, I was on board to hit the RSL early with my young co worker Ash. He and our floor manager along with her boyfriend would meet chef at the surf club and start things off around two, I believe. One thing consistent about Noosa, the days begin very early when it comes to a splash, and they end quite early. The sun was at its best, where it was not so humid, though I have adapted to it at this point. The place was slowly becoming a homing for all the locals feeling a bit saucy. Getting back to the basics, the classic avant garde made famous by my favorite lonesome wrestler of restlessness, Jack Kerouac. The cardboard and block letter heads burning confusion through each drivers vision, one day at a time. The night here, got to a momentous affirmation, we ended up at a house party between restaurants, some unique faces, and characters. It just so happened to be a dry spot for bottle barons forcing our instincts to act. Hitch hiking, an otherwise, forty minute walk, each way, to rescue our thirst from a closing industry. The kind few that stopped for our yearning sense of necessity, they are the type of people I can say I didn’t need Frasier Island to meet!!
Along with me, a Brit that was heading out to the boats, working as a chef aboard a floating object of mystery, came along with me, he was only around for a few more weeks, before he’d be off to the oceans horizon. He had some experience working in India, and Thailand as a chef, as well, a very driven force of doing what he wants and desires to be true. The chain reaction of love and linger, driving the round capsules of life down my throat until I came to realize myself. As we rushed back with the tools which make friends faster then fucking the prom queen, I also rushed to the table tops of this lounge room where we had a spread of white and blue passion fruit pushed against the surfaced glass. Although it stains the temples each time, and leaves a feeling of worthlessness two days to follow, the untying plot that it releases in the sensory guide of my idle life’s passage, a great captivation for the time being. Guitar and harmonica playing one into the other, waving their hands, throw my hair, tearing a hole out of fabric that’s been cutting off the circulation of mad bliss. The faces may have been uncertain, but for one that swung low like the tide of night, riding relish at the Noosa shore. Her accordion posture kept coming up for air and with eyes lit up, probably by that same simulation of glee as me, still it sought home or I would have liked it to anyhow. I swung my fingers into her shoulders, passing, spin, with a gesture of curiosity and appeal for fraternizing. The smile that makes a man talk off the best foot but on his knees, treading for stance, struggling to stay focused, unable to see in front. Like a day in the canyons, away from all the busy lights in busy laneways of city dugouts and dunnies, it’s those moments that might be a few, catch a loveless act in the art of awe.

The journey for beer, the laughter that circulated with passion, the outdoor pool and its pillow rest to my head, to all the things that went right on this night, I was fortunate not to be the guy wearing these special goggles. Someone had a little too much of the Brits own private dosage, something I came to treasure and need like a baby to pacifier, well this guy had a bit too much for his own systems operations table, shut down middle of the lounge, waiting on a tragic message. One of the cooks, of course its back of the house, got on the couches arm, just over this mans face(who happened to be General Manager)and hung his hairy ball sack over this guys eyes for a photo. One little nut on each lid. I’m not sure if it has been exposed, even now, but when I left to Melly a couple later, it was still a secret between chefs. It was set to be a present for his birthday, a picture of this pasted on the front of a T Shirt.

The following morning had to be handled in an immediate fashion. There was to be no altercations between getting up and getting out. It was time. I had found a couch at Ash’s place and leaving my stuff with him for when I returned. Brought my pack, and all the gear I would need for about five days of philandering, grab my trusting sharpie and put pen to paper. When you brush off straight from the best possible focus and determination, things are bound to turn out alright. It was a good bus ride out of the city to Coolin, the last stop before heading towards Brisbane. Here I could find a stop where it was not too bad a walk to the highway A1, one more time. First thing though, I had to get out of the house. Up like a carpenters typical Tuesday morning, eager to push through the day’s affairs, and return home. Here my home would be Frasier’s. the hostel that spoke my name first.

I was out the door, and off the block with record time. The bus was slow coming, and I missed my transferring connection by minutes, with the next one coming one hour and a half later. So for the time being it was back to the Surf Club, and have a hair of the dog. On the right bus and out of the towns’ boundaries there was no stopping me now. It really is not a bad drive, not far at all. Only a few hundred kilometers to the turn off where it’s a rural set of roads, desolate fields, a few scattered farm houses, and a backdrop of centrifugal force. This was the same state of affairs I had myself into on my way to Airlie. But the weather had treated me fair off the go. Until I reached the final stretch to the quiet giant that is rainbow beach. A man with a grand total of six or seven teeth picked me up of the bend and well, he was the type I had missed out on living in the luxury paradise of Noosa and Sunrise Beach. We was on his way to Tin Can Bay, where the ocean seems to dry up and the boats literally rest on dirt and sand, waiting for the tide to come back ic. I could almost see the people running frantically to their boats in anticipation, and pushing hard to get out before the swell dried it up again. He suggested that here, was his, favorite place between the two, and though it was ok, I think that the beach which was given appropriate name, along with the town being keeper to this fair sandy love affair of mine, would be a far greater stay then one in little Tin Can Bay, but, hey who am I to say, but that for mine. He dropped me off where the roads break and it’s a straight shoot to Rainbow, the rain began soft, but now came down like concrete blocks, and he was in no sense intending to do any detours for me. I got out and kept my life as optimistic as I could in a position such as this, there were no covering trees, and no pavilion by coincidence, however there was a mobile home, that was maybe a lunch space or an office or something, which looked to be part of a construction site, that did not exist. Well my fortunate self found the door open, and a chance to hide till it slowed down. But with the sun coming down real fast, it was give a breath and get back out with waving hands. So I did.
Well, I thought I had it made when the OZexperience bus pulled over inches away from me hiding under a leafless tree. I was the happiest man in Queensland right then, and the guy got the gumption to nod his head and refuse the door. Fifty kilometers at most, and the guy with half the bus empty, couldn’t help the way in this brilliant rainfall like daggers striking my hair and face. I was drinking bath water at this point, which mixed with sweat from earlier, and made for some burping pleasantries. Livid, this would be the only word. This stretch of road was so remote I was sure stuck, and with a car passing every 3 to 5 minutes, I began to walk when the rain finally slowed up . Still it rained but it was nothing like the water park adventure moments prior. So I began to walk, and it carried on a while, cursing and swearing, when a German man on his way to Rainbow came to my rescue. He was not going all the way into town but instead to the camping park nearby, dropped me off at the IGA and I made my way to Frasier’s.

Hostel entrances, you see one you see them all, and the people, well, I had been very disappointed by the whole charisma of Airlie’s desensitized disassociation with anything but college fraternity antics, the halls were shallow full of children stories who and where. But here, it came as a surprise, and those I came to meet early, would be a good beginning, and just that.
The rooms across the country, small, packed full with as many beds could fit. Here we had five bunks and a bath to share. There were two women close to my age, sisters from England of Jamaican decent, very kind, very bright, came on a sisterly quest to grow between the two. A cute little lady from America, a bland, rude, sharp Brit girl that came in late and came with intentions to keep optimism, but in rendering guilt or forced thinking brought baggage like bricks. There were a couple more to come but, would arrive late. All of them had their big Island adventure and spoke highly, with anticipation for their next phase. The following morning would all be climbing on to busses and moving on. And then my room would see some new faces, another seven to be exact.
Dinners in these places, its difficult to get anything together, depending on your length of stay, your accommodations to follow, and the amount of other passengers attached to the life force of these stove top burners. I like to eat good meals, proper cooking, where most of these radicals eat from little plastic bags full of instant noodles and god awful condiments. There is simple strategy to carry along with you, some basic items that generally are found as community products. Olive oil, pepper(I bring around my mill), salt, maybe some dried fruits, and items you can carry along, favorite condiments, garlic, and such, that are small but necessary. On the other hand you can go the easy route and enjoy the Pub specials across the east coast, the notorious nine dollar menu. Here you are given a typical four choices, the chicken schnitzel, a one hundred and fifty gram Rump Steak (sinew running all through it), cream pasta (carbonaraish), or the veal scaloppini (made from the same rump as the prior mentioned cuts). None of this is a horrible option by any means, but if you’re a capable and methodic eater, you can take it to the next level. It’s a sad state of affairs to see these people, all capable, able thinkers, poisoning their bodies with the things they ate were forced to eat first year of college before acquiring the basic fundamentals of nutrition. It’s not bad enough we pump all this awful, deadly toxic boxed wine into our systems; we follow it up with these disorderly diets. A couple weeks along that train, and you can look into the eyes of a pour, exhausted, prisoner of suffering.

The roommates were all tying in after a meal time, and I had just arrived off the beat full of curiosity and drive. Here I am, back in the laneway of tourists and transient student graduates disembarking chaos before returning to finish a course of studies. Along the bar we had a couple of faces, but none of any dying significance. An approachable young lady who spoke with the barmen, who happened to live in the town, here for an undetermined length of time with a girlfriend of hers, out of high school. She was barely legal to drink, and then came a few boys from a pack, and they were all Dutch mates, two of them friends from home, and the third met along the way and decided to stick together as many do. Rent, or buy a car and jet set your way from one end to the other. They had come from Melbourne over the course of a few weeks, and would be eventually heading back to Brisbane and then Sydney and home. Two of the blokes turned in as the lights came up, Jordii made form the same stencil and sense as I, decided to ride it out a while, try to draw a few more frothing sock rockets off the top. Of surprise the whole town shuts down at midnight. There were people floating around with these boxes of heinous wine that would soon enough have to become part of the dialogue.
There are a few things one should not do while in these environments, steal from other travelers, digging through their things in the fridge, at the end of the day, it will come back to haunt you. But we weren’t after food. We were after the life force that starved our stomachs lining drawing the pains of gasping haste to the liver. Three giant two door fridges, the ones you find in restaurants, home to many peoples food, and with any luck, one foolish daft would leave a box of Goon. Many minutes after the search we both came up empty. But the bar itself had a gap between the roof and the bars, keeping bottom feeders, and desperate vermin out. I looked at him and in an instant; I had a flash back of church camp, where me and one other boy came together with a plot to steal the donation money out of a box front of the mass area. We would get caught once the kids started sharing this news, and the leaders became savvy. It was like I was thirteen again and dug out of my barracks late at night doing the unexplainable to Jesus. Well, here we were captives of the same voice that kept us up at this hour, forging this scheme. He was tall enough, and I had arms skinny enough to make it through with enough reach to collect three bottles. Sadly, I could only reach two lychee liquors and a bottle of Sherry. Should I have the ability to bring forth, say; a bottle of Tequila or Gin, the night could have gotten real silky. Still, we set off like vultures after a score, found refuge in his car park on the street out the perimeter, and we had made it. Falling over each other in ceremony, smashed glasses to the tunes of his beater box Taurus, making sure none of the evidence saw light of day. Again we could re-enter the rains of astronauts and sailors.
At this time around three in the am you can find the real troopers, the ones that are not just going to go quiet in the night, determined to swill the last few and lash out speech about some river they rode along the way or a tower they could have built in another lifetime. Here you get to meet some interesting characters that bond together with a glue that you don’t come to find along the city streets. Faces here are typically, German, Dutch, Scandinavian, American, Canadian, British and Irish. You get also some French, some Brazilians and many Asians, from either Korea or Japan. This is what you are sure to run into along this road. Screaming to the moon that worshiped our moral standings, I heard the voice of a woman that came back to me like a dream I never forgot. Her voice is of empathy and melodic unity, a woman whose heart pours into cups of darkness to take over and bear fruit. A verse from Erykah Badu could be heard in the distance, and I knew it was her. It had been so long since I heard that song, four leaf clover, or another from Baduism, and again I was brought back to another place. Mississauga when I was working at Casey’s as a line cook on the fryers, and was regular to a pub in the area that did a karaoke which actually brought out talent like I never would or want to experience again. This woman I met, and came to drink curious, shortly after I broke up with my ex, Andrea, she did a few Erykah tracks that rocked my lobes, and she knew it. I fell apart and could only be held up by her hands and thanks. We had plans to do some work together, but I only found myself inside her fabric for a short affair before she would disappear, hopefully to battle a life of artistry with that voice so pure.
On the run, up the stairs across a veranda, and then another to the hands of this sound. It was a high point in the day, for sure, but would not settle my need for more, as we sat there and socialized our systems of pressure. The guy who brought all this hope to a music-less environment, turned out to be a complete wanker, when I went to reach a cigarette and crossed onto his balcony, furious that I had come across for tarnishing his privacy, stormed around till I spun back and left without hesitation. Jordii and I would find our own salvation, and with him falling to the bunks hindrance, decidedly I took off to the beach I came to see. At night you see little, to nothing, but along the way, at five in the morning there is always some sort of drama to become stage, unrehearsed. Found a bottle of whiskey and coke from the hands of a kid no older than eighteen, and we stumbled around a while, before separating and eventually I would find my plot to rest up for the morning.

Daytime around these parts is generally no earlier then noon, unless you have to check out, where if you are later then the general ten o’clock hour, you lose a ten dollar deposit on your beds key. This is one of the stupid dramas brought on by greed, but understandable, that if there were no rules, there would be ‘anarchy’. People would be checking out when they woke up and others may be forced to sit around an hour before their mattress came to order. I had checked in for two nights to begin with, and would more then likely end up putting in for another three. This afternoon found the hostels pool side a while and then this magnetic force brought on from Rainbow Beach. This place is really terrific.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

some of Sydneys feet to ears

Nervousness, exhaustion, the long flight and I have survived so far. Time and again the water floods creek beds to the streets, cooling this city. Guilty for crimes of passion, lust and security, refusing the cage, distant from the dishonesty of a world jaded with fear. Capturing the moments in the individual hearts, drying the eyes of mediocrity and clearing the dust. As this tool soothes my troubled mind, its strength which needs to be called on. The all mighty, rope that almighty success and find a will to smooth the gears once grinding turn sparks.

There are those who know in an instant or two, those it takes little to brush into a smile. Contact is not always caramel, sometimes kale, or vinegar. In the parallel we find common acts that perform like art and each time these moments are broken a small piece of the beaming ora fade to the sky like steam.This man only relaxed in windows where the lights dim and anxiety is silenced. Like the hours when a baby comes to a silence only to errupt again with ferociousness. Having that grace period and forgetting it just as quick.

Summary state in the hearts of the solomn. Choosers, believers, the potential entity that claw away my spirit. Saddened by the time where I am seen like a number but still I sit and play it out like theater. Borders sit and spray and live through the stage, but today is my honest truth and tommorrows lay my bitter youth. Not running, not famished, not starving but sick of the damage that has been done.Finger pointing; plays and shows, my hands which were open, my fingers unlike my toes. Human reaction and recording tape beliefs, skills are set and the morals are forbidden.

This urge to strum chords of a song exemplifying emotion. Instead I listen to theirs waiting till I am out there again. Surf city, full of beach-life-types and I, hiding in a coffee shop listening to G.Love. There are worse places to be. So long since a meeting of minds in that place where refuge caught the drift. Where the night refused to end but life played its heart.

Sitting, sulking this dizzy face, maybe the mirror is shaking, or maybe its my hands trying to hold on. Hostel life, one of charisma at night while the day drags and the spirit of few pulls down the nation. Sit in a book and slide away old soul, feed that starving brain.With freedom comes time, this lapse in a means to getting things done has a way of weaving the hand across sheet. Dictating the course of nature, and who chooses what in this lap of lunacy. On the bridge between deformity and salvation hands clap and the mind trips. So play a song young man, about the blues you got, but you don't want to live there anymore, so let go. Ghost chaser thinking of the coulds instead of what would be if the train of positivity rolled into town.


Here I am living the daily grinde, shopping at the local grocers, having tea at the off beat gertrude and Alice, where readers sit and relax to the sounds of Harper, Rudd, Simone, Vedder and so forth. Its quiet menu holding the options of any health conscious pruveyor, I sit here with my favorite person from Eastern suburbs to the North.
At the northern beaches, you have Manly, a beach fornt that holds a sunset setting that you could sit and stare right into, falling in love every night its clear enough to hear the folk music of love and prosperity along the shore. Its a Grand Bend along the curves of a womans pop bottle shape. This coastline is so popular with poeple all across the globe, you never know who you'll meet. Today we got the opporunity, I and she who makes me think genuinely, to meet a young guy from England, living in Manly. The place is the same sense as Bondi except its not polluted with mass amounts of backpackers and tourists all times of the day. The beach is not yet swarmed with the showboats of society, grazing their skin against the cancer of a sun warmer than any oven. Here its a peaceful walk along the board to a wharf, not so much based upon its fresh fish, but the light drinkers of afternoons alike...

From the minute I arrived in this city's limits, its been a mystery slowly openning up and speaking out. Looking for some type of disclaimer at the bottom of the screen, there are no clear instructions, and anything that could, should and would. From the nights crawling along unknown roads, like i was pennywise, i was pennies less, and steps from the middle grade of homelessness. I didn't necessarily come here to experience the same infractions I did back in Canada maybe ten years passed, but life as it is a surprise, likes to be existensial, sneaking up to smack a man in the face when he sleeps at the wheel. Breathing the deep stream of doubt and fear, climbing back has a way of defining moments, and cherishing those you may have forgotten, or yet, taken advantage of.

This is real, and its no quiet hour, everything is here, except the security of family and friends, its a man against the snowball affect of nature and its course. In all its filth and spillage, this city is unique, a true multiculturalism that is not just set to the immigrants hoping for more than their own reality. Here its more than a few cultures seeking refuge, looking for a home away from home. Here the first world comes to live better as well, where quality of life is equalled to the warmth from its humidity in the summer, and divinity of that canvas living along the streets. Curisoity grows along the same wave length as the swirl at Bondi, and the buildings at market square, an opera house that gives imagery to a harbour front that is viewed by millions at a time, but still ives beautifully on the front of a page speaking the music heard inside these walls.

Time inside the beat

So its the dawn of a new day today. Where I have settled in to the city streets of Sydney, and the beach fronts of Bondi. In the struggles of a recession, the world has still had light shine in to this window of hope. This may not be the best time to travel a foreign land looking for better opportunity, but the experience, no matter what the shape it may be, comes as a sense of fulfillment. Bound to find a way to continue on this trekk across the land of Australia. Make my way to the outback, to the confinment of the West, a chance to taste more of the exotic life of the Aussie. The city is like any other at the end of the day. but here at the beach, thinks move slower, silk, smooth, soft, and without complication. In all of its popularity, like anything it is what you make it.

The citys beat, a loud drum dancing the sequence of an aboriginals soul lost in traffic. Here it is, the bright lights, a strip alive from the salivating mouth of fornicating man. A dangerous place, slaves trapped in a dungeon, humanity alike. A powerful force that draws any of the lonesome to a desperate whole.There are the timid, quiet eyes just waiting for their discovery. The young ladies trip to the center stage.The filthy, basting their own skin with the soap of insecurity and loss. And the entreperneur, determined to get an education to walk away from this cave. But what happens to the character that had to cry inside.None of you bad, or wicked, just disatisfying a gender. Fabricating the same sense that designed, fed, these vultures who sit and prey, the watchmen.Escaped from that busy street out to the edges of society where nature is a booming industry. A cold afternoon with a heavy amount of fog. It chases away the thousands of tourists so's almost like we are surrounded by bush, walking together, simply.The falling waters splash against a rock face of Katoomba, ceremonial grounds where peace does not struggle its way out of an abbrasive shout. On the approach you can hear the falls running as should, feeding this, the only self sustaining organics between us. Here, the toys have yet to destroy its nourishing core, camouflaged from turbulant hands.Looking over thousands of acres, trees and truff. The creeks and river that sparkle against a courteous sun we missed today. Still, I am the luckiest man in these valley, for the escape was made not a day late, or one breath short from suffocation. My saviour, the air of a mountains purity. This heart hadn't been in it for a while yet, and then Govetts leap bear all for us to see.From the birds to bugs its life outside all the noise and plaster. The magical force of a view from above. Hundreds of feet below and at your side someones whose magic alone can revive a man from his coma. In her eyes it these view, in her hands she holds the essence of what allows the earth to grow and in her heart the same humble truth as the one received from 'The three Sisters'.

This is a garden of nature draped across small mountains. It feels like the oxygen here has a richness better for ingestion. On this particular day it is brisk after an evening of rain and still some of the leaves collect water that at times drip and drp on her smooth, sacred skin. She dresses not for attention, but comfort and warmth, like this garden we are in. My feet connect to the earth, here, more than many places. My pockets are full, not money, or any substancial asset, but satisfaction and graciousness to mother life for keeping this place rich, and father of the seed for giving her energy breath. I walk with a blind sense of paradise. Everyone speaks about Australia, being paradise, they must have sat most of their time in the gorges of these Blue Mountains.

Not sure if it is the place or the eerie state of the clouds we could nearly touch, the fog so thick it covered everything around us. Hidden behind these thick grey walls is a quiet ocean of bark and brush. Like winding roads the garden travels, waves off of tamarramas beachline.Nine hundred stairs, its like an escalator to heaven and the same sense, along the way the accents of many nationality we passed. There were no clear limitations to the seige available in this open range. A million stories told in this the perfect city for a bird, bear or a wallabe.If not for her, the woman who spoke so sharply, someone I could bare honesty. If not for this friend who holds herself none above without a chance to connect with her two balancing hemispheres. I would have thought this coast a summer blue without a seasoned green.Not a piece insside these two doors between entrance and exit I would change of your design. These drums roll, sensations snap like a branch through these dreamy pine. Foxy brown, sat front of a wood fire burning tremendous pearls in a pretty parlour of people who could be our neighbours. Sat as you lay, without a need for vision, only the force of each body present and the awareness of what is ours, and what is yours.

Count and name the infinite possibilities that could be torn open from an afternoon as this. Would you remember tommorrow, it it rained for a week.

Salami sandwiches, beer nuts, a decorative setting, a warm bottle of berry and bitters, darker than blood but not unable to be seen. Couldn't run if I wanted to, been running for years, conflicted to point break, the sound of wild dogs that ve been smoking for fifty years. The feeling inside, around the tendons, from the rugged chords of Tom Waits. A slow ballad that shakes my feet, like my knees walking down to the Katoombas creeks.

That period between adolescence and adequacy, purging bricks one at a time to bring light and aflame songs of joy and art. So many words have been written, in so many books, with many of inspiring reasons to do just this. Pushing out the deep thoughts and expresison which integrate boarders between empathy and ridicule.

Its not every day that the sidewalks you strut and skip flash with light and radiate the right of way. Reflecting the past, I sit watching french foreign films, illuminating a candle in the laneway of apperition, for a future where all the good deeds sew closed the questions of cancer.

In the wake of a brilliant couple of weeks where I envisioned you daily, cultivating that awareness. These quiet pages are about the righteous days. Ones that didn't end in a tank, a voice carrying the anger of a rabid 'Big Red' on the move for a couple of lost tourists.

Where are all my earth seekers? the truth speakers that should come in daily doses. Discovery lovely like a brushel of sage came about by and without expectation. The way it is truely meant to queue. The forces of nature draw apart the same two energies that are just too similar to stay engaged.

A ballad baby true, call me what you will, but its not depression. Admittance, a willingness to co operate with the bubbling bath beeds we've all been sitting in for years at a time. No mind reader, no real activist, but I feel the anguish when you are lonely and I adhere your pain when your bones ache. And to the one whose hands bare her hardships in rash, I tried for so many night to take it all for even a day, and wear it for you. For every smile given, a fairytale relived, brought from imagination to earth, feeling its soil.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

The Leathertramp

Each night we were amongst the city lights, surrounded by an international collective, we seemed to sit looking at each other, quietly letting hope breeze over head. Well I'm sorry, but I believe more that if you are there and I am as well, we have more in common than you may think. Move your table and meet my pupil. These are the paths that I have crossed, those being yours. This is a foundation for the circle of life. How much does it cost to wake up, walk out and open your eyes and heart.
Humility. An interesting state, one that I fear as well as embrace at times. If I could break free, completely of self image and its value, I think humility would become a less frequent merchant of my Venis.
I will continue to welcome tommorrow aside from any discomfort, or disatisfaction.

Each night we spent in Brisee, found ourselves at the Southbank 'beach', late night, dipping skinny like, and keepin the evening alive any way we could. The firswt night was a bit quiet and we had another party jump in on the fun, doing what we could to amuse ourselves in this chase for youth outside of the blues.
The naked race. A nail biting event with only one winner, a long distance swim where few of us were in water deeper than the knees. The losers have to live within themselves, knowing the event of the season fell through the cracks of their fingers. I was sure I had this one, but part way through became exhausted from either a defisciancy of carlton draught or the opposite. Still, if Jenna didn't hop out and jog the final segment I would have locked it in.
It was an evening of self sufficiency and freedom. A time, happy to have broken away from the dumping cyclone cycles, living it up, striding for the makings of our own kind of bible.

I don't necessarily come to see a sand dune or witness a shipwreck, but instead to walk the earth, as those whom did before me. Riddled with curiosity, happy to have my hom felt on the road I seek no lesser pleasure or no more in fact. Salvation to taste like salavating gums and to step outside of that society being fed into our brains since the day we squared up with the fetus.

Sadly, I live within borders outside the box, following the same proceedure as so many before me. Hitching through Alaska, alone, seldom you meet someone who walks that path. Here, there is no Alexander Supertramp, only a gang of easy ticket backpackers.
I have locked in the fear and focus, need to release the chains, chase the demons out of these gates and prepare for a time of freedom and wandering in proportion.

Yesterday friends walked passed the line between youth and sanction. Myself, I will try to walk the line for whatever time it takes until the vegabond rest. Still, my big heart aches for the pain I feel when reflecting on those people I have loved, lost, will lose, have grown to learn and listen along side. The journeys we've made together, the history we've weaved inside books like these, but in every revolution there must be casualties. I suppose.

So maybe all of us will find each other at the Pacific Crest in Northern California or maybe I can finally break free and never look back. SOme poeple may not understand the feeling, chasing a car down when its agreed to allow you on board. The segments of time that take place when conversation go from small talk to reality, and the few times when it goes from simple to warm. Some may struggle to grasp the leathertramp.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

The mentality of Dylan

One of the men I spoke with had given so much to many struggling villagers in Thailand because he believed in sharing his good fortune of born into a first world. He gave enough money to properly care for over seventy people for a whole month. Rent and food, with a month of leverage, they could get ahead on the month following. Truely incredible. They also spoke passionately of the troubles in Nimbin, where tourists come through for an hour, use and abuse and then dash. Not willing to take the time to acknowledge the town and its leisurely lifestyle.

Charlie, a true scotsman living in Nimbin eight years found his refuge there, basically by accident. Happy to live through the motions that this town entailed. He was a drifter that sent time in jail, in Canada, inthe 70's deported, never to return. The mans first taste of Mary Jane was in Canada in his time spent through the midwest. He spoke very highly about the country and he also spoke highly of the town he found his feet in at current. A truck driver, delivery type, that got wind of Nimbin through a couple of caravan types, taking time from life to discover this valley dug out by hippies.

The backpackers was basically camping and the yard was definately made for it. The next day we set off searching for diving opportunities along the cliffs ledge at a quiet waterfall. Small, maybe fifteen feet with a massive lagoon, spent about an hour butalising my body off the cliffs surrounding Something releasing about spinning your body in different directions. It is freeing o escape the sensibility for a moment and take wind at chance. It was a little rocky, I was a little out of my skin for no particular reason, but i still got up and spun it around a bit. Things have changed within me and I believe I am beginning to acquire a fear for truely hurting myself. Where I would try and take chance before, at times get a slight injury, now that i am where i am maybe the healing process will be carrying a long term effect.

Disatisfied, eager for something of bliss, we dug out, a path, not so easy, unfamiliar with the roads, unfamiliar with each other, finally found ourselves at Mignon falls, through the winding roads climbing the canyons of a volcano once burning through the years. The Falls overlooked a creek covered in green being fed by this three hundred foot flowing force of water. Here we stood with others. One of the sights I had been hungry for.

Returning to Byron, we arrived with the sun working its way through the afternoon. In Byron, my beach has got to be Dolphi, where nbody goes, but harmony and sound. This day we arrived killing time with some Stella, waiting to unite with the German folks we had missioned to meet.

The crew I travelled with for a few short days. There is Roland. Kind young German man on a tourist visa, making his way across Australia, on his last of days. He and I met through Jenna, a young woman quite a bit associated with the things I love. Especially the 'Beats', especially my man Kerouac. Her tunes connected me with my sound i missed for I chose to disconnect with technology early. Our taste in music was in alignment, wich i cannot say happens very often. Certainly not here in Australia. We had met at dinner time the night before, where I cooked for a couple of soldiers through termoil, the lovely Abi and our french connection.
Pat, a fellow Canadian, from Newfoundland, we connected with by no coincedance through Jenna as well. We had met at the hostel in Brisbane, where he had just arrived. A good man lust like any other I've encountered from the island off of our Canadian east coast. And then there was Isabelle, very short lived this one, she had backed out last minute, feeling that our energy the night before was a little too heavy and wild for her taste. And that night, im afraid was a little on the mild side as well...
In the time I spent dreaming, hoping, full of desire, I'm not sure what I really expected. Something cosmic, some sort of life altering shake of my stars. Maybe a chance to feel normal, somewhere I belong.
Seeking out something so primitive may take away some of my credential, but still, storing away feelings and burying my truths are one car after the other headed for a wall. Happiness is something to pursue, but does not necessarily exist every day. And the depression that can be casued by heavy amounts of barrel spill and rainfall can open doors of otrment and slumber.

Travel is not necessarily a means to run away, it is a chance to grow, experience, see, visualize other cultures and character. Dance inside without the disfunction, why can't it be good and just stay so simple. Hold the horns and still steady your weight.
What day does the iron lung collapse, and for the times I say, "the hell with it", "balls to the wall" Letting go of any spiritual substance I may accutally envoke; Foolish words for the loss of control. It is the will to be free, because even the substance allows the mind to wander, but it is still surrounded by a fence, protected tightly with barb wire.

In between dreams we spent some time walking the main streets of Brisbane looking for something of curiosity, and me, primarily, looking for people of good nature. That town is not a place of magestic beauty, it is a city of one million plus. However, there is a nice, politeness, a small town feeling with thousands of travellers passing thorugh, some with a unique story. That which I try to find for myself.

Why is it that in a group where we are all seperated from our force living by nature and time without any necessary direction, where in a group of 'Dylans' few open up and share a thought.