That sudden blue burst of horizon eluded me today, instead the mountains crawled into soft focus with a slow force. There is a sudden release I long for whenever I head for the hills but it only comes with the flow of tall grasses and that endless sky. I drove faster to induce wasteland Western Sydney and the rush of home and horror but it didn't come and I arrived in Katoomba sweating and fending off the same old flies.
My Mother wandered about in her house forgetting things and picking things up in armloads and putting them down again, my brother chopped through conversations with a raised wrist and a casual stare, tea cup hanging from a finger. We went out to the garage to Mum's enormous car to see the new Gleebooks at Blackheath but Mother asked me, three steps from her car, keys in hand, which side does the driver sit on? My brother drove.
Aiming straight down the hill I stopped half way for Rita, Ron and the respite found only in the home of good friends. We ate food and sat about in pools of individual exhaustion, companionably, companionably.
The car turned sweeping from the rock face steadily west at the bottom of the big hill and finally that horizon was there all run through with stars and helicopters and dreams but it was the wrong horizon so I veered left into Emu Plains for water.
Walking into Creamboy's video shop I wondered, momentarily, what the hell I was doing there but I was greeted with a smile and a line or two from Casablanca. I asked for a cup of water thinking thirstily of holding an old white mug full of tap water in both hands but he bought me a bottle of water from the fridge and I forgot in my thanks that I had decided not to use anymore bottles of bought water, the damage they do.
When I got home I felt I'd been abroad. I am my own luggage with tassles and invisible tags and straps and always the long trail of where I've been.
My Mother wandered about in her house forgetting things and picking things up in armloads and putting them down again, my brother chopped through conversations with a raised wrist and a casual stare, tea cup hanging from a finger. We went out to the garage to Mum's enormous car to see the new Gleebooks at Blackheath but Mother asked me, three steps from her car, keys in hand, which side does the driver sit on? My brother drove.
Aiming straight down the hill I stopped half way for Rita, Ron and the respite found only in the home of good friends. We ate food and sat about in pools of individual exhaustion, companionably, companionably.
The car turned sweeping from the rock face steadily west at the bottom of the big hill and finally that horizon was there all run through with stars and helicopters and dreams but it was the wrong horizon so I veered left into Emu Plains for water.
Walking into Creamboy's video shop I wondered, momentarily, what the hell I was doing there but I was greeted with a smile and a line or two from Casablanca. I asked for a cup of water thinking thirstily of holding an old white mug full of tap water in both hands but he bought me a bottle of water from the fridge and I forgot in my thanks that I had decided not to use anymore bottles of bought water, the damage they do.
When I got home I felt I'd been abroad. I am my own luggage with tassles and invisible tags and straps and always the long trail of where I've been.
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