Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Strange But True

I have found the when I go away on holidays, everything about me changes. I don't know if it's because I'm not in the same state or the same city/suburb, but when I head off to Brunswick Heads on the north coast of New South Wales, it's as though another me takes over. I settle in and read more books, take in the sea air, listen to ocean breezes at the surf walls as the salt spray mists the air. I even get on a bicycle and ride around the small, rough streets of the place I grew up around during school holidays.

But it takes a while to get as settled in as that. I have to get used to not having the television around and not having the computer to sit in front of during the day. Being a writer, I'm so used to getting my mind into surfing the net and writing and editing the next short story of a book I'm working on that when I go to the coast, it's the most difficult thing for me to unplug from this world and just to go with the flow. For about three days I just sit and look around for hours on end because I'm so up tight about not being able to type on a keyboard and read the letters on a screen in front of me. I get dreadful writer's cramp from trying to keep up with my mind when I'm writing in longhand, and then having to keep a journal of what happened that day... then write a postcard or two to some friends ends up being just scribble.

Strangely, my nails grow nice and strong and long; something that's so alien that I stare at them every day and end up purchasing a nail file because they catch on everything. I sleep well and eat better and earlier in the day. I take a good look around Mullumbimby and comment on how I could easily live in that town because it's so cool and nice and quiet compared to the place I live that's on a main road, with concrete all around and hardly anyone smiling with hot winds all the time through summer.
Yes, everything changes when I go on holidays... even the attitude of my bird changes. She enjoys the cooler breezes and loves sitting out in the cool of the fly out the front of the van where she sings to other birds. But when it came to watching me pack, she knew it was time to come home. She ran around the cage like a lunatic and knew it was her turn soon to have her cage cleaned out; readying her to be stuck in a car for an hour and half until we got home.

Now, we're back at my place, she and I are getting back into our same old routine. But I don't want that. The coast always changes a small part of me permanently... and each year, I let it stick with me. And one of these days, I'll pack all my stuff up and I may end up in Mullumbimby just because it's a nice town to be.