Sizzling Sydney

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´Hi there!´ Denis opens the door of his dodgy, blue Daihatsu. A tiny grey and black Schnauzer greets me with licks and tail wagging. I get in. ´I need to stop by my house first because I forgot my shoes´, Denis says and he drives on. Denis, a sturdy, bearded man in his sixties, is Robertsons local photographer and fashion icon. His stained, red sweatpants hang loosely around his skippyball-sized waist and reveal a pair of worn-out and downy Gucci underwear. The outfit is topped by a blueish/greyish t-shirt stretched to its maximum extent. Anyhow, Denis is probably one of the sweetest people I´ll ever meet and a walking encyclopedia as well. He knows every tiny plant, every bird call and every minuscule leave we come across. Denis’ main specialty are orchids. ‘They give off this scent’, he explains, ‘that mimics the scent of a female bee in heat. So, the male bees, they come to this plant and try to fuck with it. In doing so, they pollinate all the orchids.’ Denis has whole theories about plant sexuality about which, I’m sorry to say, I dare not ask. He takes me to Fitzroy falls, an half hour drive outside of Robertson, and then back to his place. He´s also is kind enough to show me a Bower-birds den. Now this is fascinating. A male Bower-birds collects all kind of (mostly) blue items. I’m talking pens, little bits of plastics, feathers from other blue birds and even clothespins. He lays the items out in a half-oval shaped position and in the middle, he builds his very own stage (bower). When a female swings by, the male bird will put up a performance to try and impress her. In aboriginal dreaming, the Bower-bird was first a man who took joy in the killing of other people. As a punishment, he was caught and changed into a bower-bird. Today, it is believed by the aboriginals that seeing a bower-bird in your dreams indicates that you take too much pleasure in things that could damage your health or be too risky. Also, bower-birds are regarded as the architects of the avian world, so crossing paths with one can also be a sign that it´s time for some renovation or redecoration in your life. It’s almost six pm now, and I promised Jenny I’d cook for her, so I say goodbye to Denis. But before I leave, he gives me a small Tupperware box. ‘Desert, for you and Jenny tonight’, he says. When I open the box and look inside, I see seven black berries which he just picked from his own bush.

As is in life, plans change. I come home to the news that tonight, there’s another party. I planned to make Jenny pumpkin-coconut soup but instead of just us two eating it, we take the whole pan with us and drive to Antonio’s place in Kangaloon. Antonio has roots in Chile, his place of birth. He’s in his late thirties / early forties and he owns a beautiful house alongside a forested road. In total, he owns six hundred acres of land, two of which he uses to grow his own food and raise his own chickens and sheep. Antonio cooks a whole meal for us all – Stephen, Jenny, me, Carlos, Penny and two other lovely people whose names I forgot. He makes lamb stew (yes, from his own lambs, butchered himself), a chickpea and carrot salad, rice with a variety of nuts and herbs and a beet salad drenched in sour cream. I hand Antonio my pan of soup to be served right away. He lifts the lid, smells the damp coming from the hot pottage, looks at me as if I have just told him that I am single and desperate for a man and says: ‘bella, you are a rare breed.’ He spends the rest of the evening chasing me around, begging for a kiss because he believes he could only really grasp the recipe of my soup by tasting it right from my lips. Good try. In fact, he gets ten points for originality. But once it really sank in that I sure as hell was not going to kiss him, well, I believe I sort of hurt his feelings. Poor Antonio. Pumpkin soup will never be the same.

I have managed, even in a short while, to build up some sort of comfort zone here in Robertson. I have a room at Jennies place, I have got to know some locals and there´s just heeps to do when you´re as much into photography as I am. But time has come knocking on the door, and it tells me to move on. Steve and I have been planning to go to the blue mountains to do some exploring and perhaps go on another canyoning trip. So, come Saturday, we pack up when we feel like it and get going sometime in the afternoon. For two hours, we drive to Katoomba, a tourist resort right in the middle of the national park. I have no idea where we´re going to sleep, I have no idea who I am going to meet this time, neither do I know where exactly we´re going. But Stephen says it will all be fine, so I just tag along, trying to get an update every now and again about what we´ll be doing. Around ten pm, we arrive at Erik´s house. Erik is a friend of Stephen and shares a house with three or so other people, all rock-climbers, hikers or involved in outdoor sports one way or another. As we unload the car, I suddenly notice that my bikini isn't we´re I thought it was and I ask Stephen to help me look for it (I had given it to him earlier that day to throw into the car). ´When did you last see it?’ I ask him. ‘I’m not sure’, he answers as moves some bags and looks around. ‘Well, think!´ I say. ´It must be here somewhere.’ Without noticing it myself, I’m getting a little tense, thinking that if I don’t have my bikini, I’d have to.... well, I’d have to... Let me think about that. It´s really no big deal to me personally but when I ask Stephen again whether he has found it, he snaps at me. ‘I’m still looking San!’ I can tell that he’s angry with me. Carefully, I ask him why. ‘Well, you’re stressing me out. You keep asking questions and I’m fed up with it.’ Stephen has clearly had it and I don’t really know what to do. I feel kind of awkward, not really knowing what I did wrong. ‘Is this about the bikini?’ I ask in a small voice. ‘No, I should have said something earlier’, he sighs. ‘You keep asking me so many questions. Just relax, okay. It will all work out.’ I don’t know how to reply or if I should. I know I ask a lot of questions, perhaps because I’m inquisitive by nature, but I had no idea my inquiries were annoying Stephen that much. To me, questions are a way to get some conversation going. We leave it at that and head into the house, but once everyone has gone to bed, I feel like shit with a capital S. And yes, of course, here come the tears again. Do I really ask that many questions, I wonder. Stephen is still trying to get organized and notices that my waterworks are in full effect once again. He sits next to me and says ‘I’m sorry I snapped at you. I’m tired and when I’m tired, I get emotional.’ I still don’t know what to say. I don’t know Stephen that well, after all, and I don’t want to make things worse. ‘San, you’ve come here to Australia and to see me and I’ll look after you so just relax, it’ll all be good. If it were the other way around you wouldn’t leave me hanging either.’ Stephen explains that he sees it as his duty to take care of me and that I should stop worrying. However, I need him to understand that I’m a world away from home, with hardly anyone I know, so yes, it’s nice to have some security or some sort of plan so, at least, I can prepare myself somewhat for whatever is coming and get into the right mind frame. Steve though, is the complete opposite and thinks it’s best not to plan anything and let whatever comes, come.

It gets me thinking – well, of course it does. I’ve got a brain like an Olympic athlete suffering from ADHD before the discovery of Ritalin. It just goes on and on and on - am I that much of a control-freak? Or is Stephens own way of travelling so different, that it highlights whatever security I need? I don’t see myself as being over controlling, but I know that’s not always illustrative. My friend Jeff in Seattle, tells me I am machine-washable. In other words, you can just throw me in the back of your car and take me out frolicking all day. By night-time, you just throw me in the washing machine (I assume he means a bed) and by morning, I’m as good as new. But I also have friends who do tell me I need to let things slide. If I am going to be brutally honest with myself – and I am - I do see that there are some things I would like to control. For instance, I like to control how my loved once treat each other. I like to control who is responsible for what. I like to control what I eat and when and I always like to have some sort of global plan for the day, or perhaps the coming three days. Especially when I’m tired, I like to control who I spend time with and for how long. And last – now this one runs very deep – I would like to control HOW I die. It terrifies me to hear about horrifying deaths, I mean burning, drowning and choking. If it were up to me, I’d just fall peacefully into sleep – at a time of choice - and take off from there.

But perhaps it aren’t control issues that creates a clash between Steve and me. Perhaps it is something of a different nature, something cultural. Not too long ago, I visited Rubondo Island – the least visited national park of Tanzania in Central Africa. It remains uninhabited by people, even today. I met this Australian teacher there, who was also enjoying the remoteness of the island, and we started talking about what would happen if we were to put different people from different countries on Rubondo. The Irish would brew their own whisky, we decided. The Italians would introduce the mafia. The Americans would be paranoid and start an anti-terrorism campaign and the Germans would drink beer and eat sausages. ‘What would the Dutch do?’ I asked him at one point. ‘Oh that’s easy’, he replies. ‘They would organize the whole bunch.’

So, organization. Yeah, I would say I’m pretty good at that. I’m one of those poor souls that makes lists and writes myself memos because otherwise whatever idea or thought I have about, well, anything just gets lost in this wasteland of reflections and considerations. I always try to clean up, but it’s like trying to empty the Atlantic ocean with a Chinese tea cup. Not only is it a hopeless task, the poor tea cup would eventually crack after transporting a mere five thousand gallons of salty water with another countless gallons to go. I sometimes wonder whether that could be a source of fatigue – although now, it seems like one of those ‘yeah.. duh!’ things. Despite resting up here in Australia, despite releasing whatever emotion lays within me standing by to pour out, despite trying not to think too much (I love it when people tell me not to think too much. I always wonder where the borderline is between thinking just enough and a bit too much – or am I already thinking too much right now?), I feel a growing fatigue, like an ulcer that breeds, throbs and fevers within me. It’s been there for a good one and a half years now, and it thrives. Sleeping won’t help me get rid of it, so I know the over-tiredness isn’t physical. There has to be something else that is tapping right into my energy vain, draining whatever is left of it. Perhaps it IS my quest for answers. Perhaps I AM trying too hard to grasp this world around me and organize it into bite size chunks that can easily be digested. I have a drive – a voice within me- that inspires me to climb psychological and philosophical mountains just to stand at the summit and peer out over yet even more questions and deliberations. Perhaps my Canadian friend and mentor Daniel was right all along when he told me: "It is because you're searching for the answers to the absolutely critical and unanswerable questions you pose that you're destined to touch people's souls. Ambiguity lies at the heart of all great stories. This is the writer's curse. "

‘Are we cool?’ Stephen asks me later on. ‘Only if I can get a hug’, I pout and all is fine from then on. Stephen installs himself on some iffy pillows and I take the fold-out bed. It has springs the size of mountains with gaps between them as far apart as the cliffs of the grand canyon. It’s also stained a brownish-red here and there. How wonderful. The hour passes and still, no sleep. I hear Stephen tossing and turning in his sleeping bag. ‘Are you okay?’ It’s about one o’clock in the morning. ‘I’m itching all over!’ he replies. Bed bugs for sure. He finally takes his stuff, heads to the car and falls asleep there. I stay in bed, balancing on the steel springs until, finally, it’s 6.30 am. I don’t know how many hours I did or didn’t sleep. All I know is that we’re heading down the blue mountains to go canyoning in, what’s called, the butter box canyon. Great. Wonderful. I’m delighted... Seriously, I’m excited but lethargy is a station I passed hours ago. I put my bikini (yes, we eventually found it!) on backwards (just to show how alert I am this morning), take up a canyoning bag and head out to the car. Half way up the stone steps out front of Eriks house, I trip. One of my flip-flops gets caught behind a step and I fall face forward. My lower leg hits the edge of the stone steps and lashes through my skin. There’s white stuff coming out of a deep cut, probably the subcutaneous layer of the skin which contains fat (I've looked it up), and I am in freaking pain! I guess God or fate or the encompassing energy that flows through all of us – what have you – decided today is NOT a good day for death defying adventures. Instead, I get a free trip to the hospital. It all turns out fine in the end and I luckily don’t need any stitches. But instead of canyoning, I just spend the day playing the übertourist, mingling with the Japanese crowd that packs on big, red buses to drive through Blue mountain national park only to get off to do some scenic walks. It’s fine. It’s just the way it is right now.

Later that day, I travel back to Sydney with Enmoore, another one of Steve’s friends. She has a house in a suburb named Ashfield and is kind enough to let me stay at her place until it is time to catch my flight to Tasmania. Enmoore is Chinese and one big bubble of – extremely organized – energy. She works as a trial researcher at Sydney university and is a big fan of rock climbing. In Sydney it is hot, well above 40 C during the day (just to demonstrate how hot that is, I fled back to the house after visiting Sydney Olympic Park today. I came in, I was happy about the cool temperature inside. The thermometer, however, read that it was 29.1 C! in the house). I found that heat, combined with a lack of crowds normally to be found in the inner city, leads to a lot of wildlife.... Or should I just say BUGS! Just outside Enmoores apartment, in a shared garden, I find a variety of creepy crawlies. I’m fascinated by them. Spiders, the size of ping-pong balls, hang at the centre of their one meter wide webs. I’ve seen cockroaches the size of freight ships – well, in microcosmic terms – dashing for cover as I approach. There are enough butterflies to paint a rainbow and salamanders and birds are all about. There’s an orchestra of cicada’s and crickets in the surrounding trees. Their music swells and diminishes at any time during the day. It sounds like ten thousand water sprinklers and chain saws are turned on all at once. I hardly pay attention to where I’m walking as my gaze is always tuned up- and sidewards. I feel like Darwin and Ashfield is my Galapagos.

Sometimes, when I am in one place at night and have access to the internet, I go online and put on skype to chat with my loved ones back home. I am supposed to meet my stepmother tonight, or at least, I asked her but haven't had any reply yet. Usually, when I speak to her on skype, she logs on with my dad's account. So, naturally, I look to see whether my father is online. Of course, he isn't, and neither is my stepmother. I open the dialogue box and read that my last skype-conversation with my dad was on the 8th of July last year - ten days before he died. I type a message to him. 'Are you there? I miss you.' I wait for him to reply - five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes. I don't think he'll ever receive that message.

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