📍Sent from Mulubinba (otherwise known as Newcastle), sitting in a booth seat because she wasn’t working. While writing from this new spot, I realise I get scraps of the sea breeze from this seat as I am closer to the door. It is a better seat.
Contents of my suitcase are sprawled across the perfectly vacuumed carpet which is a refreshing space to work with compared to the pet-fur-covered surfaces I have become used to. I am hesitant to return the items of clothing that have not been worn since I embarked on my everything-in-a-suitcase era to their rolled status inside.
“If I led a boring life, this would be easier!” I call out to my sister in the kitchen, although this isn’t the first time I have said it. It has been my defensive reply to folks who question the size of my suitcase. A suitcase, mind you, that I have not once complained about wheeling around. I happen to like how much easier it is getting for me to lift onto airline luggage belts and into the back of taxis or generous family member’s car boots. All of those years of 5-Minute Miracle workout videos have nothing on my 23kg suitcase when it comes to arm strength.
“There is my travel yoga mat, a sketchbook and pencil case of markers, my microphone, my laptop, my headphones, my journal, my Big Book, my tarot and affirmation cards, my incense…”
What I really want people to know is that it is not all clothes. Clothes are the thing I am willing to give up when it gets too heavy. Anything from stocking up on a new tube of aloe vera gel when it runs out, or receiving the burden of a gift from a loved one despite my informing everyone of my weight limit, or being a hypocrite and buying the thing I spotted at a market for someone I love I won’t be seeing for a few stops and therefore will have to carry around, are all things I need to consider before I board my next flight.
“Okay, I already got rid of a few things and now it is down to these two shirts. Help.”
“When was the last time you wore them?” my thoughtful sister asks me.
“This one to the Guns N Roses concert before I left… but I don’t remember when before that. I have his top hat tattooed between my boobs so I don’t know if I need the shirt… plus I also have another shirt with him on it.”
“Okay, and what about this one?”
“I don’t know either, but I do know the last time must have been with my overalls as something was hiding the band name at the bottom of the shirt, and someone asked me if it was Johnny Depp.”
My sister bursts out laughing with me.
“I have had this shirt since I was nineteen.”
“I think if you are going to keep one, it’s this one.”
“I agree.”
My Slash shirt which has been cut off into a crop like most of my other shirts partly because of my style, partly because that makes them weigh less, gets thrown into the donation pile. I imagine someone very cool coming across it at Vinnies and being elated by their find. Who would throw this out? they’ll think.
“I think a barista yesterday was flirting with me,” I tell my cousin the whole story as we drive along roads lined with gum tree shade. The interaction seemed so dull in subject matter that I feel ridiculous repeating it out loud, yet it hasn’t stopped replaying in my mind since the morning before. I finally break the cycle by blurting it out.
My cousin asks me to look at the map on her phone for the coffee shop she has kindly chosen to drop me at to write while she goes to the gym.
“Oh my gosh. Stop. It is the same place!”
I am surprised by my hurt feelings when she doesn’t seem to recognise me. She tells me I have a cute outfit and then greets me with the pleasantries she would any other customer.
I finish my order and then she asks “Will you be sitting at the window again today?”
I respond by laughing in relief about our exchange the day before, telling her how my cousin chose the coffee shop and once I realised where I was going, I asked her to check my tags were all tucked in as I exited the car. She laughs along with me.
I sit by the window. Not that I had planned to. I feel as though it would be rude not to now she has mentioned it. I sit barely writing, instead thinking about every comment she makes as she drops things off at my table, or every conversation she starts as she clears items. I am mostly thinking about if I am just wishing. A modern-day love story.
I sit and ignore my need to write and plan travels and book hotels while a playlist so good that I put my headphones away in my bag fills the space.
Song after song I wonder if it is her playlist and I text my sister:
🗨️ Cute barista, unsure if flirting or nice, great playlist of The Pixies, G-Flip and… THE CURE!
💬 Thank god you kept it!
I stare at my laptop not writing, and plan my outfit for when I come back tomorrow, tapping my foot and mouthing the words.
Lovely reader, head into the comments and tell me about a nice interaction you have had with a stranger this past week.
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here are three things i struggled with this week:
🐾My patience with a pup who got anxious at sundown. Each day got easier, and each day ended with her snoring in her bed like a sweet baby angel.
✏️Getting back to my novel. I finally have the time again and yet…
🦜Speaking up and owning my wants.
here are three blessings from this week:
🌅Showering next to a large open window while overlooking treetops and the ocean. Wow. How’s the serenity?
🦋A (wanted) hand on the small of my back.
💰Deal Or No Deal. Sorry, but yes. It is back on television and I have been catching the last 10 minutes every day this week and it has been a nail-bitingly blissful way to switch off from the world.
here are three goals for the coming week:
😌Take these weeks of easing back into solitude and ritual as they come — giving my body and mind what it asks for in each moment.
🖋️Touching the novel daily. It doesn’t have to be writing. It could be journaling on aspects of it, or the characters. It could be drawing. It could be plotting. Thanks to the wonderful
for the suggestions and thrilled to welcome your new newsletter to my inbox.👭Open-ended time and no plans with my bestie.
pics or it didn’t happen:
I love you. Now I am off to enjoy two nights in a king-size hotel bed within walking distance from the beach, my laptop and notebook within arms reach just in case, but with no plans aka my birthday weekend.
Happy birthday. I'm at a conference so lots of interesting interactions with strangers.
The only dtrangers I've spoken to this week have been a couple of medicsl people making appointments.
I don't talk about it much, but I'm pretty much a shut-in. I have anxiety and agoraphobia so had they almost eclipse the chronic pain. Put together into a heap and unless I have no choice, I can't. Even then, I constantly reschedule appointments and everything.
But, the two appointments I'm about to have are ones I've been waiting for. One to talk about sleep apnea that I've been on the list for since Jan last year. One for psychotherapy which I've been on the list for about 2 and a half years (and pretty sure they bumped me up the list after my dr yet again wrote to them, this time with concerns over self harm and suicidal ideation. Might have been just to shut everyone up but I'll take it).
For the sleep one it's a nice phone call.
But for the therapy I have to go present myself physically at the appointment. This is my cue to go into abject panic. And getting home afterwards is going to be...well I suspect I'll manage it by dissociating til I'm safe again. And holding onto Cuddles, because I know she'll get us there and back.
I used to love talking to strangers. These days, I can mask up and do the thing, but it's exhausting and terrifying and I have to hide for days afterwards. I miss the days when I didn't fear everything. But 🤷 This got off topic.