volume twenty-six

better late than never

Hello, lovelies!

As the subtitle suggests, better late than never, hey? I have been so enjoying time away from the internet as often as usual, in order to eat ice cream, hug loved ones, go in the ocean and get some more of that magic Australia sunshine, thankfully with no more sunburn because did you know they invented a product to prevent that? Wild, I know.

I hope you enjoy the typed version of what was first handwritten into the small journal that I have been carrying around with me, while home in Australia. ICYMI, you can read previous entries here.

DAY FIFTEEN:

The airport I flew out of to leave my best friends — the one I had mentioned previously, that was so small I was in awe — has a hand-drawn evacuation plan and zero security. Maybe I won’t leave, not because I feel unsafe, because of the exact opposite.

Goodbyes suck. Home is wherever I am with Rhiannon.

saying goodbye to my best friend’s best friend <3

The plane back to Sydney (then my journey goes onwards back to my grandparents a little further north) stops again on the way, in Moruya. While there, to paint a picture of how small the plane really is, I hear the entire phone call the pilot has on his cell, arranging his shifts for the week as well as his annual leave, then the flight attendant jokingly calls him “moneybags”. It feels weird that I have access to this interaction, but not intrusive because we are all friends now, sorry.

People are amazing. We are stuck at the stop for an hour due to there being too many passengers and bags and some weather ahead for us (again I overhear all this before they even announce it). Seeing people volunteer their bags be offloaded means we lose weight and can get going. Honestly, everyone is so nice and understanding and says “thank you” instead of anything negative when we get updates. It is wonderful and truly how I wish it could always be. The girl in the row next to me eats an entire block of chocolate and takes a nap and snores while we wait, waking and not actually realising any of this is going on. Hero.

Side note: I offered to get the next flight — exiting the weight of me and my bag from the plane — but sadly it wasn’t a flight two hours later like they originally thought, it was four hours. That would have gotten me to Nan and Pop’s past dinner and that wouldn’t work for them. I was so close to saving the day!

Sobriety helps in my patience. I am not sitting here wishing I was at the pub or on the balcony having a beer, having those “when is my next drink?” thoughts. I am just happy to be here with my book and journal.

It feels fitting that it starts raining when I arrive in Sydney, after six days of sunshine in the literal and metaphorical sense.

I arrive back in the beautiful Bateau Bay area and Ian, the same cab driver I got going to the train to leave greets me and we have a laugh that I made it back all in one piece, albeit a little sunburned.

At one point in the afternoon, we couldn’t find Poppy in the house or backyard anywhere and panicked only for a minute before finding him out front. He was gifting one of his walking sticks to a lady walking by who he spotted clearly needing one as she struggled up the street with a regular stick that was all bent and obviously not ideal. She was so grateful and wished him blessings over and over. Poppy is the sweetest and this was so beautiful.

My coffee mug is already laid out for me for tomorrow morning with a spoon in it, too. This time with a sweet note from Poppy attached “to the most wonderful”. I wish I got a photo but, alas, it was thrown out before I get a chance in a clean of the kitchen five minutes later. Poppy feels bad for throwing it away, but I assure him it is okay! He wanted to throw it out because “she keeps everything so clean”.

DAY SIXTEEN:

I got a banana toast delivery from Poppy who got to make his Writers’ Hour unofficial debut to adoring fans. We all need a Poppy, is the general message here.

I walked to the shops with Nan and Pop. Poppy walks slowly these days. Thank goodness he does because a driver ran a red light, while also speeding and had we been a step closer, we all would have been wiped out. Scary times, but so grateful we are okay. The driver went so fast that in the time it took me to turn and warn Nan and Pop they were past us. In the time it took me to quickly look and see they were both okay, the driver was out of sight so I couldn’t get the licence plate. I just hope the driver was as scared as us so that they drive more carefully moving forward, but the honk of the car horn tells me no. All the other traffic was stopped as they should be, shaking their heads in disbelief of what they almost just nearly witnessed, missing it by inches. The light was still green for us to continue walking, so we did, proceeding with caution. In her shaken-up state, Nan kept saying it wasn’t our time, indeed it was not!

Once we are at the shops, Poppy points to a florist and says he used to go there all the time for Nan. I ask if he wants to today and he says yes so we pick her out some flowers and I help him pay for them while she is in another store and he greets her with them when she comes out. It is so sweet.

Nanny turns eighty next month and the golf club she has been a member of for about thirty years wants to do a little presentation for her and give her a medal. I help her write some of her achievements down and then I turn it into a little speech, where one of her peers will add some of their own memories and present it all to her. It was so wonderful to learn not only is she a great golfer with many accomplishments and lots of medals, she is a hero and a little bit of a trailblazer when it comes to being a woman in that world, too, achieving and pushing for a few firsts for women in that time.

DAY SEVENTEEN:

I took a morning walk to the beach with Poppy to get a coffee together at the oceanfront cafe. We got caught in the rain and huddle under a big tree while it passes, which really kept us completely dry it is so big. What a beauty. We see Nan on the golf course while we wait for the rain to pass.

It was so nice to sit and watch the ocean together and chat. On the way back we bumped into a man named Walter who greeted Poppy and introduced himself to me. I find out that Poppy wandered into his house about six months ago thinking he was at another house. Oh, dear. But grateful for a man like this who is so understanding.

One TV at Nan and Pop’s place is playing the news with mass cases and dread and terror and all that jazz to keep you watching. The other living room is playing a live cricket match, here in Australia, in a jam-packed stadium, Make it make sense. Again, I step away. TV is rubbish.

Aunty Deb called up to check-in and we got to talking. 8:30 pm rolled around and Nan came by and tapped her wrist like a watch. We are all in bed by 8:41 pm.

DAY EIGHTEEN:

I apparently slept right through a giant storm last night, which is a shame because I love thunderstorms! I had my window wide open and still managed to miss it all. Never fear though, as Poppy reenacted it for me by stomping around to make thunder noises.

Dad is coming back today and Nan is pointing him out in photos to Pop to remind him who Dad is. Poppy then asks her, dead serious, “who is is the one who dances around the house all the time?” and I cannot help but laugh as I twirl by with an “I have no idea!”. I HAVE BEEN CALLED OUT!

While I am drinking my coffee, Poppy dances in his seat. I say “who is the dancing one now?” and he responds “I am just practising”.

In Nan’s ever-so-present organisation, she has, first thing in the morning, Dad's beer glass and bottle cooler (stubby holder Down Under) for him ready on the kitchen counter. *eye roll*

In this house, I am a technology guru. “Hello, IT. Have you tried turning off and back on again?”. I have fixed the clock on the microwave that was all wrong, I have helped Nan learn how to use her mobile phone and I have added important numbers as speed dials on Poppy’s mobile phone as well as In Case of Emergency instructions as his phone wallpaper. I even managed to turn the language back to English for him after it was somehow switched. Just call me Maurice Moss.

I got Nan and Dad (who arrived this morning) away from just sitting for extended periods of time with afternoon beers by suggesting a beach walk. We were gone for an hour and a half and it was so much nicer than sitting around and watching them drink, or excusing myself to be alone which would be my two options at home. The ocean is always a great idea and I saved two bees, picked up some trash and pet some doggos, Rhiannon is inspiring me even after I have left her.

This is a nice discovery. I love giant dill pickles even more now I am just enjoying them rather than treating them as a hangover cure like I did since the day I discovered them. 

I manage to avoid more beer drinking daylight hours by suggesting more UNO and by ironing on more patches that Dad brought me for my denim jacket. Time together is important and I am so grateful for the power I have learned that my family and I can spend time in other ways. I even get in one of my very Lauren moods and parade around the backyard like a fashion show with my cool ‘new’ jacket making everyone laugh. I feel so in my element — sun, salt air and people who know me without a filter, all give me life.

I ended the night by watching stand-up comedy on TV with my Dad, who long ago introduced me to comedy and gave me the love for it in the first place.

Extra observation: I think that people who are still slowly putting their masks on after they have already entered an establishment are the same people who thought they were cooler than others in high school because they carried their backpacks on only one shoulder. All of those people have fucked up backs now, just saying.

DAY NINETEEN:

Sunday morning rainy, lazy sleep-ins in my Nan and Pop’s house means I get up at 7:30 am feeling like half the day is gone.

Dad and I did the super special, kind of secret thing we didn’t do last time he was here and it was as special as I had hoped. If you know a lot about me, you might be able to guess what it was, but if not, all will be revealed in March.

I had a three-hour drive with my amazing younger, cool cousin today. It was the most time we have ever spent one-on-one and it was marvellous and healing and funny. Families, ‘eh? I loved us both chatting so openly and realising how many things we have in common and opinions and interests and thoughts we share. I loved being so vulnerable with her and have never felt so close to her.

Tonight I had a family BBQ sober for the first time since I was… fifteen or sixteen? I was able to lap up all the conversation, especially my uncle’s pride as he showed me around his incredible backyard of ponds and bridges and pergolas and gardens he has put so much work into. I was even able to join in on the conversations with the relatives who aren’t big drinkers, as we usually by default get split into two groups inside the shed and outside. I was outside for the first time — looking in — remembering who I used to be with several beers and cigarettes with the rest of them. Life is good.

DAY TWENTY:

I woke up early with my younger, cool cousin to take her sister’s doggos out for a morning walk. I feel so odd and out of place here because I feel so different and I cannot pinpoint why, as I am so welcomed with open arms and excitement. My cousin who’s dogs they are, and I are practically the same age, I have always considered us so close, and I think she is wonderful and I love her so much, but I don’t think I have ever realised how very different we are. She is the kindest human I have ever met, this means to be no comment to her character, but I feel like an alien. The walk with her younger sister is exactly how I want to start the day and get out of the house to reset.

Side note: I clock myself changing my outfit so that it covers my body hair to avoid any discomfort or judgement I have imagined might happen of other people, which is totally about me and no one else so I am writing this to sit with it a while and ask why.

The scent of the diffuser in my cousin’s bathroom transports me somewhere else, as scents can so often do. I am not sure where I smelled it but I am a teenager with her heart totally broken and in denial, I am unable to put my finger on exactly what time this was because there were a few. I am always amazed how smells can bring back such vivid feelings.

I am driving around the town where my extended family live, with my younger, cool cousin (yes I will just keep referring to her like that because she is) and neither of us lives here anymore and can see it as a place to get out of. I haven’t really known this place well since I was thirteen when I went to my early high school years here. So much has changed but, oh so little. One thing that hasn’t and I am glad, is that the butcher is still there, and as we drive by, through the window I see Mr Lewis and let me tell you, he is still hot as hell.

Interesting memories rushed back as I treated myself to a yummy soft drink. Cheery Cheer tastes like being abandoned for hours with my sisters at the pub by our parents but I must say it does taste better when you buy it for yourself and it is not bought for you as bribery.

In an effort to spend the time in this town in a way that creates new memories rather than revisiting too many old ones, my younger, cool cousin and I make our way to the biggest attraction it has to offer — Timbertown — “a tribute to our pioneer timber getters”! It is an amusement attraction based on (what we learned was in fact an actual IRL) town from over one hundred years ago. Some things like the steam train were just as exciting, and others were just sad to see how much it has gone downhill. When you’re younger, things seem so much better and sometimes it is sad to see them go. When we arrived we shared our excitement with the lady taking our money, that we haven’t visited since we were children, to which I added: “I hope it hasn’t changed one bit”. Her response? A very dry “I think it has”, we should have known. All of that to say I had a bloody blast in good company then we met with my other cousin and all went to an outdoor maze, surviving somehow in extreme heat, likely due to the fact that we got ice cream afterwards.

FROM AN OLD IG POST: 🤙🤙🤙 cute day

DAY TWENTY-ONE:

My day started with a coffee delivery from my beautiful cousin (and doggo kisses from her sweet little sausage dog babies) who I am driving with today, along with her husband, to my next destination — Byron Bay!

2 Become 1 sing-along in the car, naturally, results in my cousin’s husband getting into a state of pure annoyance so I sing even louder, telling him the more he turns the volume down, the louder I will get. This is great and the perfect bonding time for my cousin and I to reconnect with the women who raised us.

Note to self: Add 2 Become 1 to my “songs to fuck me to” playlist on Spotify.

Note to self again: Stop is a demisexual anthem if you want it to be.

I am not a diva (mostly) but when I booked my Byron Bay accommodation I was so excited by the beach hut I had booked (and I manifested the pink one and got it). All it had was a bed and fridge, with shared kitchen and bathroom facilities in the holiday park. This would have been so fun if I was a cool, chill, travelling girl ready to meet lots of cool strangers and not living with a pandemimoore on the rise again. Alas, here we are so I upgraded to have my own bathroom and kitchen in my cabin and I am very glad that I did. I had so much fun unpacking into the cabin — my home for the next three nights — while listening to Triple J and loving every single minute of feeling at home in every sense.

Within two minutes of heading out to explore Byron Bay on foot in search of some groceries and places to get socially distanced yummy bites and beach views, I came across an unleashed doggo who ran straight up to me to give me kisses. I am off to an excellent start, as I then pass a butterfly mural and know, as usual, when I see a butterfly, everything is peachy.

At 8 pm the moon is out and the sky is pink. I head out on a search for some dinner and all of the beautiful, summery, young humans are headed out of the resort gate too, dressed up for their evenings of fun. It is so nice to feel a human connection even in these small ways.

I can hear music coming from multiple directions. In one direction I can hear Rocket Man being played live, in another some electric guitar, and off in the distance some bass…

Classic Lauren walks around and around (and around) up and down every street in downtown Byron Bay — the way she always does in a new place — getting her bearings, seeing what is around. It is so unbelievably cool here, but so overwhelmingly busy. I stop to grab a bite to go and decide on a vegan Aussie-styler burger (which means it has pineapple and beetroot on it, so, you know… drool!) and there is a twenty-five minute wait. People scoff and leave at this news but not me! I sit outside, write in my journal and enjoy the warm air. I love having nowhere to be at any time, and knowing that twenty-five minutes of wait-time is just an opportunity for me to pause. There is an ocean breeze, someone singing and playing the guitar across the street and a few teenage girls sitting around the corner on the grass, in earshot, talking about what I can unfortunately only describe as the biggest f**kboy I have ever heard of, but they don’t know it yet.

I take my dinner to the beach and enjoy the sound of the waves, people chatting and the ocean lit up by moonlight. There is a message that has been knocking at my door (heart) since I got back to Australia and here, sitting in the warm evening breeze listening to the ocean waves, is when I finally let it in. More on that to come. For now, I have all the time in the world.

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 🍕