Holiday images
Years ago, I stood with one of my brothers looking out over a large water supply dam in the Perth hills. We had ridden up there on his motorbike, me sitting on the pillion leaning with him as we rounded bends, he expertly guiding the bike up the inclines and around the curves. We stood in silence looking out over the expanse of water, our helmets tucked under our arms, the jarrah forest around us. A group of tourists poured out of a hire car, clicked cameras at the water, jumped back into their vehicle and drove off. My brother shook his head, ‘I’d rather look at it while I am here than look at a photo later,’ he said. He wanted the images in his head, not on film (as it was in those days). It’s a concept that has stuck with me, the need to look closely at things when they present, rather than snap a quick photo and move on to the next thing.
I have been away during my break from writing Mostly Outside. Rob and I house-sat for friends down on the south coast while they were away elsewhere. Their beautiful, bush-surrounded house was ours for a fortnight. I have returned with very few images in photo form, but many in my mind.
In the house, my favourite spot to read was on a small day couch by a window overlooking a bird bath. I got little reading done. My eyes are ears were constantly distracted by the comings and goings at the birdbath. Silvereyes and splendid blue wrens, variegated wrens, weebills, New Holland honeyeaters, red eared firetails and, just once, a western rosella. The New Holland honeyeaters flew through noisily, either singly or in squadrons. The wrens were quieter, hopping along in family groups, the males brilliant in their breeding plumage.
Other images from my break are etched in my mind.
A dugite on the side of the firebreak on our friends’ property. It was already looking at me by the time I saw it; the small head slightly lifted, the tongue flicking the air, two metres of reptilian muscle stretching along the sand. I called my dog back to me. Grabbed her collar and held her. The snake slithered across the path in front of us and disappeared silently into the shrubs. I didn’t walk along there with the dog off-lead again while I was away.
A young woman, walking slowly up a steep hill, carrying a baby in a sling, the batik print of the sling against the deep pink of her loose shirt. The woman’s hand beat a slow and gentle rhythm against the baby’s bottom. As I drove past, the woman’s mouth opened in a wide yawn, which affected neither the rhythm of her hand nor that of her slow-walking feet.
A kangaroo on the path ahead of me, a small white star on its forehead between its twitching nose and pricked ears; paws held at its chest. Then gone. Bounding away into the bush. The thud hanging in the air after the roo was lost to sight.
My dog running crazily on a wide, deserted beach, her back legs almost overtaking her front end as she bent to bite at the foaming water. The ocean beside us almost too blue. The sand beneath my bare feet cool and squeaky.
Another beach, viewed as I rode with a friend with the early morning sun still low in the sky, the beach framed by the grey ears of the Arabian horse my friend had generously lent me. Surfers vied for waves out on the curl of the surf break. A four-wheel drive passed us and a young girl sitting in the back pointed a camera at us. Rain began to drizzle and our horses wanted to turn their bums to it, but we pushed them on, homewards. My shirt soaked to the skin on my arms but dried off again before we got back to the float. We ate pancakes with berries and cream for breakfast after our ride and it was so very, very good.
Sitting at the table in the house where I was staying, I heard kookaburras laughing manically. I looked out and saw a black-shouldered kite sitting on a branch. It took off, soaring high above the wetland, before turning on its wing and disappearing into the sky. I saw it again, or else another of its species, another day, flying through the yard close to the house, two magpies in hot pursuit. I stood and gawped at the air battle. Then the kite found a rising thermal and lifted way, way above the magpies, which returned to the trees and warbled into the empty air.
Swimming in the sea, embraced by the cold clear water. It took my breath away, the cold and the beauty. I swam, quickly at first to chase the cold from my muscles, then more slowly, arm over arm, loosening my joints.
And now I am home, sitting at my desk with the frog pond outside the window and an easterly wind buffeting the garden.
When I signed off my last Mostly Outside post before Christmas, I said, ambiguously, that I was taking a short break from my weekly posts and would be back in the new year. Thank you to those who so generously contacted me and said you hoped I wouldn’t be away for long. Well, I’m back, as you have gathered by now. I have decided I will show up here in Mostly Outside once a fortnight, rather than weekly as previously, to give myself more time to devote to my book. It is all-consuming. I have sent my first draft chapters to my Lovely Editor so am making progress. I’m feeling both excited and overwhelmed by the task, which my Lovely Editor assures me is perfectly normal.
Thanks for reading,
Jill