Strahan days

1012 am
Computer freewrite. It’s been a long time. I get out of practice. Looking at words as they move, create, across a blank white page. Days. Past. In Strahan. Tasmania. That’s in Australia. I’m in Australia. That still gets me. Last night I fell asleep to crested terns zipping in the sand. Flying over raging waves. Waves. Sand. Ocean water. A caterpillar in the sand. Inching her way to the sea. Alone. Days to myself. They are always for me. What am I to say. I can’t delete anything anyway. Banjo. Mandolin. I miss my mandolin. And my mandolin teacher. And my apple farm ‘band.’ Banjo jam sessions over ice-cream and thieved peanut butter cookies from work. On my bike again. It takes me a while to get out of a house sometimes. But once I do. Thank goodness. Cleared head. Sane again. On pebbly, rocky, bumpy roads that left my arms with a severe case of itch. Nobody there but me. And the seal. And the white bellied sea eagle. Massive. Goosebumps. Happiness in such beautiful scenes. I slipped into a quiet mood all weekend. With the house to myself and nobody to interact with. It takes time to relearn things I very much enjoy. Alone. Dancing. Dance hall. Moving anyway I wanted to. Poem writing. Two. These are the things that come out of me. Fruitless searches for blackberries. Finding a secret to me route out of town. Without the steep, immediate hill. Smiling at old couples as they walked along the harbor. River cruises. Taking seconds on the included buffet. Giant trees. More than 2,000 years old. A cormorant, there, in the water. Charismatic guides. Life of convicts. Sarah Island. I close my eyes and I don’t see toppled over Huon Pine. I see the highway up to Bellingham with conifers mixing with the clouds in the sky. Home. Places I will go home to. People I call. Screams and “are you serious” and they say they love me. I try to explain. Say what this place is like for me. But they are there. Nobody is here. This is only for me. Concerts in Zeehan, a 13 piece band from Cuba. I found it chaotic. Too much noise for my mind. The last 3 days I’d cooked pancakes and steamed vegetables to Leonard Cohen. With his guitar and the occasional extra instrument. All these people walking down the street. Rick and Barbara again. Dianne was already dancing. Had asked me to too, but my mind wasn’t there. I was in a cave, content to be watching from there. But Barbara, she tricked me, I thought she wanted to take a photo. But then she was dancing, next to Rick, who was be-bopping away. So I gave it a go. For a song or two. I want folk music. And dancing on an empty stretch of the longest beach in Western Tasmania.