G’day, g’day!
I am typing this up for you from the spare room of my grandparent’s place as I have been a close contact and am awaiting my fate. The downtime is welcomed in a way, although the timing is not ideal, on my return to Canada would have been better. When I said I didn’t want to leave, this is not what I meant.
Anyway, more on that next week, as it evolves, and I fill you in. For now, though, this week is my tale of days twenty-two to twenty-eight: another week of gratitudes, observations and realisations while being back home in Australia. You can read more entries from my trip so far, by clicking the irresistible button below.
DAY TWENTY-TWO:
I love having all of the windows and doors open from the moment I wake up (and even most while I sleep). The warm, fresh air is a mood maker and energy giver.
I take the walk up to the lighthouse via the information centre in Byron Bay. This heat is stunning. I cannot help but think how I’ll hope to never take warm weather for granted again. The air smells like sex. Maybe it is the sweat, but honestly, I am not really passing many humans. Maybe it is the salt of the air, which is more likely. Maybe it could be the fact that I had an intimate dream last night (demisexual style so of course someone I know…fun!) and the thought is still lingering in my subconscious. Maybe it could be all the half-naked, sunkissed bodies, dripping with suntan oil and sunscreen and sweat, including my own, lingering. Whatever it is, it feels like heaven as I get higher and higher above sea level.
I reach the most Easterly point of mainland Australia. I can see an entrancing, vibrant blue ocean as far as my eyes can see into the horizon in almost every direction.
I spy a dolphin pod! Right there! Playing in the waves, floating in the crystal clear blue. There are so many, maybe ten or more.
It feels like every time I catch my breath from the hike, something beautiful takes it away again — the dolphins, the clear skies, the horizon, the sand and rocks below, the trees, the people, the scents, the sounds of the waves crashing…
After nearly falling on my face several times since arriving in Byron Bay due to tripping on things at my feet, I realise it is because instead of looking at the ground like usual, I am enamoured with my surroundings. I am always looking up.
I love chatting with strangers! Especially in sunny places. Everyone is so happy.
Part of the track is shared with the road on the way back down but there is not a car (or person) in sight. Either side I am surrounded by native trees and all I can hear are the bugs chirping away and the ocean waves in the distance.
I enjoy an afternoon swim in the pool, reading on my balcony with hummus and crackers, and doing some newspaper puzzles that were sent with me by Nan and Pop. I follow this with a laydown to rest before heading out again. I love holidays but these are the kinds of things I need to remind myself to make time for, always.
In the early evening, I walked around trying to find dinner that took my fancy, mostly because everything I was interested in was in a busy space I have no interest in entering to be around that many people in a pandemimoore. I ended up walking so long I decided on ice cream and gave the money I would have spent on dinner to the buskers who serenaded a crowd while I enjoyed my giant double-scoop.
The beach sunset is spectacular. The moon! The pink! Ahhhhhhh!
DAY TWENTY-THREE:
It has been a wonderful day, I am so happy to be here exploring NSW and Australia like this — in a romantic sense. I am in love with her and I want to know everything about her. I ask so many questions about her — her history, her future, her interests, her best and worst traits, I am hanging on to every word.
Today I am doing this in Brunswick Heads — about a thirty-minute bus ride from Byron Bay. I feel like I can breathe again here. Byron Bay is absolutely stunning — and healing as they say — and I will forever think of that beach as the place I truly came home, her ‘beauty and the moonlight overthrew’ me, comes to mind. What a magical place it will always be and I am not the only one who thinks so, which is why it is so nice to get out and breathe here away from it all.
I get off the bus and fall madly in love. The coffee shop, the information centre, the vintage store, the beautifully kind and smiling people, the architecture, the blue skies on wide streets lined with trees and the obviousness that shoes, pants, shirts… are all optional.
I am here to meet Marian, a dear friend made in London Writers’ Salon. I have been looking forward to this for so long. It does not disappoint. From the moment we meet (acknowledging we are the same height, something zoom hasn’t told us yet) we hit it off. We start the day with a plan to make a plan by going for coffee. We sit outside, the sun already so warm but with the breeze keeping us cool enough. I learn so much about this place and about Marian and I am so excited about it all. To have known someone this long and to share some of our most magical, vulnerable, creative moments together, and then finally meet is beautiful.
The day is spent in the most perfect way. We swim in the ocean, surrounded by far fewer people than Byron Bay, which encourages me to actually enter the water. The water is warm, but not uncomfortably so. The kind of warm I start walking into and don’t stop until it is up to my ears. I am not scared of the waves, which I notice, as all my life I have been, but I suddenly become aware that is not the case on this trip. The ocean in the middle of the day has a way to wake me like no amount of coffee ever could. I feel cleansed, rejuvenated and alert while also being so blissed out on relaxation.
After our swim, I enjoy the best meal I have had (since Rhiannon spoiled me over New Year’s visits) at a local cafe and devour the rainbow on offer in the dish. I am all in for the vegetables, spices, pickles and colours! I am so enjoying it that I inhale too quickly and get vinegar from the pickled vegetables in my throat and splutter all over myself and my host, who very politely doesn’t judge me for it.
Of course, the perfect Australian day isn’t complete without ice cream, and after that, we head to the river, set our intentions, and silently write together in the afternoon shade of the trees. It is the most I have written since coming home, it is the most focussed I have been, period. Marian says today has been a retreat and I couldn’t agree more.
I wish this could be my everyday life and thanks to wonderful people like Marian and Rhiannon, who I have spent time with while home, I am seeing a life with this style as entirely possible and I am so ready to make it my own.
Once back in Byron Bay, after a sad goodbye to my new-to-me-in-real-life-but-not-new-in-general friend, I pass people in bars and on their way home with brown paper bags in hand, filled with their wind-down potions and I do not feel jealous, I feel grateful.
Later I am welcomed (of course) with such warmth to a local meeting where I am gifted my eight-month sobriety chip and I cry happy tears throughout almost my entire share, because, yes, I am still so new at all this and that is okay.
DAY TWENTY-FOUR:
It is 5:30 am and I make my way to the ocean to catch the sunrise. It is already twenty degrees celsius and I am in heaven as light raindrops cool my skin. The streets that have been swamped with people day and night since I got here are empty and quiet and I only see the staff member of the newsagency opening up shop as my fellow early-bird.
It is a cloudy morning but the enchantment of this time of day is not dimmed. As I arrive at the beach, I am greeted only by the rushing sounds of the ocean and the hundreds of morning birds above me in the trees.
The cold of the untouched morning sand feels different to the burning sensation I am used to it giving me during the day. It is yet to be trampled by hundreds of feet and holds just one set of footprints that lead to a lone surfer headed into the water.
I step into the crystal clear saltwater goodness which is the perfect temperature under a cotton-candy-pink sky. For the first time in a long time I feel regret, but just for the fact that I didn’t wear my swimsuit. A log that appears to have washed up in the tide makes for the perfect vantage point for me to take everything in. The morning crew begin to arrive as the sun continues to light up the sky, the green of the luscious trees become just that — green — and I see more and more sunbleached, sunkissed heads bobbing in the waves. Along the coast, the tallest thing I see is not a building, but the trees, which makes me so happy. I seem to have caught the attention only of the seagulls who have not yet learned that I have no food with me. Otherwise, I am left blissfully unbothered to enjoy the view, journaling in solitude. This doesn’t have to be my life only when I am on vacation. This could and should be my life.
Not to rub it in, but on the walk back, I got unsolicited advice from a stranger about my acne. So there.
I take a rapid test ready for travel and it is negative, the red line indicating my okay, the same shade of red as my sunburned nose.
I stop in the city on my way to my next destination to swap from the shuttle bus to the train and it is so obvious I am now in the city. The smells, people, sounds, air quality, lack of ocean breeze… I have become more and more aware that in my sobriety, I like cities less and less, and for very different reasons do I like them at all. I am so glad this stop is a short one.
On the train, I apply perfume and lipgloss at the same time the person across from me does. We must be getting off at the same stop.
I am greeted at the train by my niece (!!!) who since my last visit is a *gulp* adult with a licence. Ugh! We head to her family home to surprise my other niece and nephew. It is beyond overwhelming and special to get cuddles that are years overdue, including some for the very first time from my youngest niece, when my “I am coming to meet her” trip was cancelled in 2020. She warmed to me almost instantly after waking from a nap, going outside to play, and having me wait at the bottom of the slide for her. I won her over with playtime and before I knew it she was climbing into my lap for Aunty Lauren snuggles, burying her head in my shoulder and wrapping her tiny arms around my neck. I am going to burst just typing this thinking about how lucky I am to have all these little humans to cuddle and love and how lucky I am I have an amazing big sister who is their Mumma. I spent the night snuggling and reminiscing with those who have known me the longest — my sisters (and the children and my brother-in-law) and it was absolutely perfect.
Out of the mouths of babes: My nephew, unprompted asked me “On a scale of 1-10, how lonely are you?” Oh, buddy, I know you’re being funny but if you only knew how much I already do not want to leave you.
I am not sure what it is about me being around my family — like I did with my Nan and Pop and my silly parade of cat-walking my new jacket — but my silliness is so amplified to a place of ecstatic joy around them. It is like being a young teenager again (the one my parents lovingly laughed at for being an oddball). She is great.
DAY TWENTY-FIVE:
I am getting really good at not letting things not worth my trouble consume my precious time. You need this urgently when it actually is not urgent? I’ll get it to you on time and your stress will not become mine. Thanks.
Cuddles from the kids, mangoes for breakfast and Mary Poppins dance parties to fill the start of my day. Backyard hangs, beach walks and pineapple planting — that my brother-in-law had the thoughtful idea to do, ready to eat the next time I visit I hope — to fill the middle of my day.
I am going to stay with my baby sister for the next few nights. I am so proud of her, always. I am late to the party in saying so, but I really am, she is kickass at life. The night is spent cuddling her doggo, Dobby, fighting off spider attacks (okay, not really but we did have an intruder — seriously get out!) and baby sister time <3
I am a better sister and aunty as a result of no longer trying to impress them or be someone I am not. I have all the time in the world now to just bask in my loved ones awesomeness.
DAY TWENTY-SIX:
This morning has been so great. I caught up on some emails, work and writing and I did some laundry. I did it all with the shadow of Dobby the pug. Lucky me!
I got picked up by two of my most amazing friends of mine, who are sisters, who lived an hour away from me for years here and we didn’t meet until we were in Vancouver! We are reunited and it is amazing. We have the kind of breakfast where the waiter replaced the water bottle ten times, the owner came to talk to us several times to join our conversation for extended periods and where we were only silent during eating times aside from the occasional “oh my god this is so good”. We were so honest and accepting and excited for each other about life's ups and downs. I didn’t expect anything less, time with these babes is oxygen.
I spent the day then playing in the backyard with my youngest nieces and nephew, blowing bubbles, watering plants (including the pineapple!) and splashing in the water. I got to see my Mum today, too, for the first time in a long time and get Mumma hugs. Even with some tension since the last time we saw each other to overcome and break through, I was able to be so proud of myself for how I was open to being here.
You know when you say goodbye a million times and keep talking anyway? That happened twice today. Once when my friends dropped me at my sister and brother-in-law’s home and the four of us got along so well we couldn’t stop chatting. The other was when my younger sister came to pick me up after work and we were trying to leave to go home to her home but we kept talking and talking (and loving every second) with my sister and brother-in-law. I love that.
I enjoy movie time with my baby sister and a pug that won’t stop licking me.
DAY TWENTY-SEVEN:
Return of the spider! This time in the dishwasher!
I am sitting at the breakfast bar while Dobby the pug gives me kisses and sits at my feet. Life is pretty grand.
I took a long drive with my oldest sister and the kiddies up to where I used to live to drive through the town. Gosh, I had a crappy house in a great street, with the best damn view ever.
I am so lucky to be an aunty and a sister. I got to stop for lunch on the way back and treat us all to burgers and chips by the playground at the beach. I am so happy to be home. It feels good to (for really the first time ever) be in a position where I am able to shout things for my family. They deserve it and I want to be the person who treats them so much.
I spend the afternoon in my baby sister’s pool with her, laughing and relaxing, only to be love-smothered by Dobby once again once I am back inside. While in the water, we both rested our chins on our hands on the pool edge. I look over and tell her we have the same arms (then present her my arm that doesn’t have a giant tattoo). You know, you look down at the same arm your whole life — it’s tone, the spots, the texture, the markings, the colour — you get to know it perfectly. I see that hers is identical and it is so beautiful as we hold them side by side.
This is the most quality time I have spent with my sisters in so long, or maybe ever? I am so thankfully present and not so self-involved as I have been in past years, so I am showing up and being here in these moments with them.
I got to enjoy making delicious dinner with my baby sister (and a dog-friendly version for Dobby) and eating frozen mangoes for dessert, then pausing bites to make safe space for laughing until we cry and holding our tummies at the funny TV.
DAY TWENTY-EIGHT:
Good morning greetings from a snuggling-up-for-kisses Dobby and a sleepy, beautiful sister.
My last trip that was supposed to bring me here in 2020 was, for obvious reasons, cancelled. Yet here I am, doing the things delayed from then. Today is one of those things where I get to treat my eldest niece finally to her almost two years overdue eighteenth birthday present of matching tattoos.
Final thought of the day: Is there anything more beautiful than the sound of your loved ones cry-laughing?
Continued next week.
I love you,
Lauren xoxo
No blessings, struggles or gratitudes lists this week as I think they’re pretty well covered above.
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 🍕
Aw I love seeing these pop up in my inbox! Also appreciate all the blue skies included. It feels like I’m getting a view of your days while you’re home. Thank you for sharing