volume one hundred and twenty-one

how’s the serenity?

📍Written initially in my pocket-sized notebook in scribble format, as a skywriter wrote above “Your skin remembers”, a warning about skin cancer. This is Australia. You cannot make this up.

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🎤 Upcoming Shows:

• Experimental Comedy Club, Perth: November 28th and December 12th

• Not a live comedy show, but a podcast show. You Made Me Queer is a fab fab fab podcast that I was on and was also the best day of my life! TREVOR YOU ARE A DREAM! This INTRO made me CRY and accept the fact, with complete glee, that we are friends FOREVER! Cannot wait to chat like this together until the end of time over Tim Tams while Unchained Melody plays in the background.

youmademequeer

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Buried under the straw cave that holds my face attempting to protect me from the sun’s rays, letting only partial light in through its cracks, I am cut off from sight and embrace it. Closing my eyes, I am more than ready for a sun-soaked nap.

That is when my sense of sound is heightened. The thought of sleep becomes impossible because the thought of my notebook in my tote bag — placed beside me, far enough I seem cool and casual, but close enough that my right hand makes contact knowing it is still there and not snatched away from me by a beachgoer with theft as their plans as I watched Two Hands too many times from a very young age and I have no regrets — is on my mind.

To my left, three younger-than-me Italian women speak their native tongue excitedly. I try to imagine by their tone what they are discussing. I hope it is travel, careers, hopes, dreams, ambitions, things they have achieved they are proud of. But I know it is boys. I can recognise talking about boys even when I cannot recognise the words being used. It is a universal language.

Two men with English accents somewhere behind me likely being sunburned which is knowledge I own without seeing them at all, compare their final drink of the night before. For both of them, it was at the time when the room started spinning so they cut themselves off.

My friend who told me she was tired as we arrived and our feet met the sand — unsurprisingly so as she just flew across the world and went through a big life move, something I know all too well — begins to snore next to me.

A parent yells, hopefully at their own child, “I will not tell you again! DO. NOT. THROW. SAND. If you throw sand again we are leaving!” and I smirk knowing that will never be something I have to worry about. I think about how people tell me I will change my mind when I meet the right person. I think about how people fail to see that I already have met that person and that person is me. I know what I want and don’t want. Period.

A beach that welcomes many international visitors every day of the year brings me an Irish accent next. He tells his friend all he needs is a swim in salt water and then maybe a beach shower, and that would do him every day. He claims there is no need for anything else for his hygiene. His friend, also Irish, disagrees and insists that soap is needed to “not smell like a wet dog”.

Several feet walk past me, all of them I know are close to my head and my ears because they spray me with sand speckles that hit my straw hat in a soft rain. The feet either thud at the sand bare and pick themselves back up again as quickly as possible, or are slapped on the heel with the rubber of thongs if they are feet more sensitive to the heat and therefore in less of a hurry.

Australian accents — I imagine by the banter, that of an adult son and his mother — exchange their thoughts on how they do not care where the flags are placed today, they will swim right here where there are fewer people. They are confident because “there probably aren’t any rips today”.

A distant volleyball match picks up its pace. The patter of cupped fists meeting the ball gets closer and closer together and each one is followed by a grunt that loosely translates to “I did it”.

I sit up and let my eyes adjust to the brightness outside of my enclosure, flipping over to my belly for what I hope to be the same amount of time but what the heat tells me is a dream if I want to make it out of this day without an even worse headache.

My nemesis, seagulls, spy food and announce it to their friends who come and join them. They are the loudest attendees at the beach. They even start to draw out the sounds of obnoxious face-sucking and a Bluetooth speaker playing the opposite of relaxing music, both of which arrived at the party together.

“Are you ready to go to the next spot?” I ask my friend.

Lovely reader, what have you overheard lately?

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here are three things I struggled with this week:

⚖️ I love a sense of adventure and taking each day as it comes. I also really love my routine, most of all my morning ritual. I need to make room for both even when I am not alone.

🧳 Obsessively obsessing over luggage weight flight rules.

🤟 Getting better at accepting offers of help.

here are three blessings from this week:

💟 Teeny tiny cuddles from teeny tiny nieces and nephews.

🏡 Being welcomed into others’ homes. Three different ones within a week and all I am so grateful for.

🧘 A dog that wants to join in on my morning yoga.

here are three goals for the coming week:

🌊 I am once again close to the beach, so daily walks would be wonderful.

🪩 Dancing on my own.

🌌 Gaps in my calendar on a regular basis.

pics or it didn’t happen:

🌈 just out here living a life beyond my wildest dreams

I love you. Now I am off to find new cafes, markets, libraries and used bookstores in my latest housesitting location.

🧡, LD (lauren deborah | she/they)

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lil bonus content for y’all this week because I am so thrilled! GO LISTEN!