volume twenty-four

t-shirt sunburn

Hello!

I am back in Australia for the first time in about three and a half years. I have been disconnected from wifi for the most part, but I am carrying around a mini moleskin and a pen in my handbag and recording things as I go. Below are the entries typed for you — from the airport as I wait to board the plane to visit my best friend for New Year's Eve, and in Writers’ Hours from my grandparent’s spare bedroom.

DAY ZERO:

Seven hours of sleep on the plane and binged the whole season of Hacks for the first time. I am great at flying, what can I say? I even managed to get up every few hours to wash my face and change my mask because skincare is my jam!

DAY ONE: 

I arrive in Sydney and the heat knocks me and my jetlag on our butt, even from within the airport. Every time the sliding doors open I feel a wave of fire wash over me.

I went to get my PCR test as is mandatory in my first 24 hours of arrival, before I am allowed out of isolation. I walk in the sun for about twenty minutes and get extremely sunburned. I have been in Australia for four hours.

I am in awe as I spot so many flowers and birds on the walk that I had forgotten all about and I get to see them all through fresh eyes again.

DAY TWO:

Do I have a pandemimoore fever? Or is it just 23 degrees celsius and with 91% humidity at 5 am?

Round two trying to get my PCR test. I go at 6 am — the place doesn’t open until 7:30 am — and there is already a huge line. Yesterday I didn’t even make it before they reached capacity. I am sitting and waiting to be seen and reading my book and an ant crawls into my undies and bites my bum. I guess I am home?

Walking back from the test, I realise how many strangers say good morning to you as you pass them in Australia. I also realise I had forgotten how every lawn here has a tap or water thingy. What are they called? Let me ask my Dad…he says it is a water meter. Seems about right (and obvious).

nanny greets me out the front as I return home from my test

I realise I am the way I am in my home because of my Nan who has dinner prepared already. The potatoes are in the pot peeled and cut ready to boil, the salad ingredients are laid out uncut in the bowl on the counter, the placemats, plates and cutlery are counted out and in a stack on the bench and the bread rolls are also portioned out from the larger bag and sitting with them. It is 9 am.

There have been a series of errors and setbacks and muck arounds just trying to (hopefully) get a negative result on my tests so I can remove my mask, stop distancing and hug my family. It is frustrating and ongoing, but I clock how calm I am in the list of errors and fumbles. My Dad and I even laugh a little about the blunders, which is pretty out of character for two people who get grumpy easily when things don’t go their way. I am grateful recovery is working its magic on me.

I notice that Poppy (my grandfather for those of you who live in places where Pop means Dad), has written his neighbour’s names on the fence where they connect to those yards. He has always been someone who chats to the neighbours over the fence and as his dementia takes a stronger hold, their names are scratched on with permanent marker so he doesn’t forget.

Nan and Pop’s pet bird eats out of my hand, I have gained his trust and he is the only living thing I am comfy enough to get close to yet while I still await my results.

After dinner, Poppy sneaks by me and slips paper-towel-wrapped chocolate in my hand and puts his finger to his lips to tell me not to tell anyone he gave me some of his secret stash.

My rapid test is negative.

DAY THREE: Christmas Eve

I asked Dad to pick up some bonbons (or Christmas crackers for my North American friends) when he went to the store as I am still isolated. I wanted some for the dinner table on Christmas night. He returns with some and it isn’t until he goes to open them that he realises they are chew-toys for dogs… shaped as bonbons. We all laugh until we cry and he gifts them to the neighbour’s dog without telling them about the mess up, so now they just think he is the sweetest guy to think of their new dog while he was out shopping.

Snuck out for a nighttime walk to stretch my legs (and find Christmas lights) and picked a frangipani off a tree in the street and smelled it and tucked it behind my ear. I am sixteen again when this was my number one accessory at school. I don’t find any lights but I do see surprise fireworks! They are red and green for Christmas Eve.

My rapid test is negative.

DAY FOUR: Christmas Day

Merry Christmas! My gift from Santa was a crampy period. Thank goodness it is a day for overeating!

I see the Australian ocean for the first time in many years. It is perfect.

Mid-morning I realise that my Nan has super surprising strength as we fight over the broom she tries to steal from me after I already stole it from her because she won’t stop working!

I realise after lunch, that Nan starts cleaning up the table before the rest of us are even done eating because she is eager to have a clean home again. She means well, she wants her home as it is and doesn’t want anyone else to have to lift a finger in the process, but it leaves me with no sense of relaxing. Also, here I am realising that I do the exact same thing in my home and it hits me that is how I make my guests feel.

Christmas afternoon, my uncle decides to look at the sliding door that goes from the living room to the outdoor area, as Nan and Pop have been saying it is broken. Nan, Pop and my Dad all stand around and watch him fix it and I laugh so hard. This is so silly but also, here I am, watching them watch him. When I go home, this is a moment I will think back on fondly and laugh.

I have been wearing my mask indoors and when near my family non-stop since I got here. Which I plan to do until my PCR results come back (daily rapid tests are negative but I want to be sure before putting anyone, especially my grandparents, at risk). I notice, however, I have had zero new face breakouts. In Canada, I barely go anywhere, so I might wear a mask for 20 minutes a couple of times a week to do groceries and I get pizza face. Interesting that it is so hot here and I am sweating under it but my skin is fine. Maybe my skin is just *used* to Australian weather (except for the sunburn factor of course).

Sitting eating Christmas dinner we all laughed until we cried as we all mocked Nan’s voice like when she talks to her bird, Gordy. “Who’s a good boy? Who’s a pretty boy?” Nan cry-laughed and I cannot remember the last time if ever, I saw her do that. This sitting around the outside table and talking with family is perfection.

DAY FIVE:

Weetbix for breakfast. The first time in many, many years. How many do you do?

I get an email reminding me I need my day six PCR test tomorrow after my international arrival. I still do not have the results from my first and am still masked up, distancing and PANICKED!

Dad teaches the bird to kiss. It is pretty cute. Later on, I am laying on the grass in the sun and I hear Poppy walk behind me and sit with the bird and say “give us a kiss!”. He doesn’t know I am there or maybe he thinks I am sleeping if he does. I feel so lucky to sneakily witness this precious moment.

I am seeing butterflies everywhere! I have long regarded them as a symbol that my higher power is taking care of me. I am seeing them on the side of the house in art, that has been there many years and I never noticed, on a blanket that hangs on the neighbour’s clothesline, sitting on top of a gift as a decoration under the tree, flying around in the sky everywhere, on the necklace of my Nan’s friend…

Poppy, who has dementia, and knows who I am but doesn’t really know that I am who I am, knows I am sad as I still await my results. He walks by me and says “hang in there love” and it means the world and I snap out of it and be grateful for where I am right now.

I write about the butterflies mentioned above then go outside. A butterfly lands on the armrest where I am sitting and sits with me. I know I am going to be okay and tell my family this is good luck.

20 minutes later the text comes through that my PCR test was negative. I throw my mask in the air that I have been wearing for five days (fresh ones, don’t worry) and hug my Dad, Nan and Pop.

This sweet interaction: Nan - What’s the time, Gordon? Pop - It’s the best time, love.

Dad went to the shop and got a huge box of bonbons at Boxing Day sales for $2. Redemption!

DAY SIX:

I wake at 4:30 am so I can make sure I am at the start of the line for the testing centre that opens at 7:30 am. I arrive at 6:15 am after a 1-hour walk and the line is already about 100 cars deep. The lady working there tests me right away when they open because I am on foot, even though I tell her there was a huge line when I arrived and I am happy to wait my turn. We have a lovely chat and she wishes me a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year with my family, sharing her happiness for me to be home.

I leave the test and another lady is standing outside her house and we get chatting for about ten minutes. She says “it was lovely chatting with you” and I agree. I have missed chats with strangers. Is this an Australian thing or is this me being somewhere I actually speak the language and taking advantage of that? Is it both?

I cook dinner for Nan and Pop. Dad cooks them pork chops to accompany my vegan-fancy-stolen-from-an-internet-recipe-rabbit-hole feast. As lovers of simple, yet delicious meals, they thankfully love it all! A success!

Nan and Pop have two sitting rooms and both TVs are playing the same news program at full volume, so there is an echo of the same news. I decide to sit in neither and chill in my room for a bit. The news I have consumed in this week is more than I have watched in two years and it is getting to me.

As I wash the dishes, I am in the same area a new TV show is playing. It is a police show (ugh) documenting drunk drivers (ugh). A man who is very emotional after being pulled over for very good reasons sends me into tears as my glasses fog while I continue washing the dishes. Alcohol has been thankfully easy for me to avoid so far on this trip without much thought (and lots of food) but this made me very emotional and stirred up a lot of feelings.

Dad and I watch Waynes World 2 on TV – with ad breaks, what the heck is this? The scene where Bobby (Christopher Walken — shwing!) and Cassandra dance to ‘Can’t Get Enough’ made me fall in love with Christopher Walken all over again. The man can DANCE. Dad tells me this song was the first time a song made him stop everything and listen. His older sister (my Aunty Deb who you will hear about in coming volumes when I catch up with her) played it in their home and he remembers being around ten years old and quickly standing up from where he was sitting in the living room and saying “WHAT IS THAT?”. He said it had him from the “one, two, one, two, three…” and that is how his love affair with rock and roll began I guess. I told him I love this and it is such a cool memory.

DAY SEVEN:

I get Donut King from the shopping centre and Nan calls me Little Miss Piggy and I eat the whole bag kind of in spite of that comment and mostly because food makes me happy and I missed these yummy bite-sized cinnamon treats. Last day of period bag of donuts? UM YEAH.

KMART! I am not safe here. Take all my money.

Dad, Nan and I get caught in a sun shower walking home from the shops. It is my FAVOURITE smell. Rain on a hot day hits different in Australia, the smell isn’t the same anywhere else — the way it steams off the road and the hot soil and grass and fills the air with a scent so unique that makes me so happy and feel at home.

Bare feet on the perfectly manicured lawn in the hot sun — bliss!

I did laundry and hung it OUTSIDE to dry! Oh, what a concept to use the sun and breeze to dry my clothes in the same amount of time the dryer takes in Canada.

I cried at the TV again. This time a seventy-five-year-old man got all of his prized collection of garden gnomes stolen and the community rallied together and all dropped him new ones so he ended up with more than he started with. I would watch the news more often if it was more of this.

I love you,

Lauren xoxo

No blessings, struggles or gratitudes lists this week as I think they’re pretty well covered above. I will add this bonus, though. Sometimes I take notes and have no idea what they mean. Does anyone know how to decide if this was a typo I emailed myself or if I just do not know how to make sense?

A hotel with no room underneath - more of this, please. 

If you feel inclined to say thanks for this post, please like or comment (it’s free and means so much!), forward it to a friend or you can buy me a slice 🍕