Breakfast at Alice and Gertrude's Bookstore Cafe, Saturday, 4 June 2005.

I like…
...the sound of thunder, the gathering of enormous grey clouds and the smell of anticipation just before it rains.
...to see my photographs in print, put into an album.
...to hear a good song on the radio that I can bop to.
...to be with friends who know me.
...to wake up early in the morning to a good breakfast and time with God.
...the realization that it’s so much easier when I rely on His strength even though just 1 minute before, it feels so incredibly hard.
...the low whirring and drip-drip sound of the air-conditioner when everything else is quiet.
...reading a good book/blog entry/magazine.
...memories that make me smile and miss.

Sydney sidewalks.

Newtown; waiting for 423

This was one of those perfect days with the bluest of blue skies and the warm sunshine falling in all the right places. The temperature was just right.

It was a Sunday (a perfect day for perfect weather) and we’d had a perfect Sunday breakfast at a perfect Sunday-breakfast place - Urban Bites, even though it got cold where the wind blew. We had: raisin toast (Gen) and French toast dusted with cinnamon powder and drizzled with maple syrup (me), accompanied by our usual coffees.

After breakfast we walked down the length of Newtown, dropped by Gould’s Book Arcade (huge, huge, huge bookstore) and the furniture store next door to it (cute Australian boy/sales person).

Lunch was fish curry and fried broccoli with rice. Eaten while basking in streams of autumn sunlight. Perfect Sunday lunch.

At 4, we left for church. The next 2 hours were happy hours.

It was one of those days that wraps you up in a blanket of complete contentment, where you find yourself walking down the street, silent and smiling to no one and everyone.

Content.

Sunset, on the way to Redfern from Central Station.

Today, the sky was indigo and orange and blue. It looked as if someone took a fine-toothed comb and happily ran it through the clouds. On my table sits a card with a lovely pink heart from a dear friend, with whom I hope to always share life’s journey. At 5pm, I put on the Les Choristes soundtrack in my discmanand went for a long walk. I closed my eyes and it felt like I was walking with angels singing at my side.

“If you make the Most High your dwelling place…
God will put His angels in charge of you to protect you wherever you go.
They will hold you up with their hands…” (Psalm 91: 9-12)

There are angry flashes of lightning outside my bedroom window but the sharpness does not reach me. The songs of angels continue, I recall all the goodness of today and for now, I am content.

I try

Central Station, on the way to Chatswood, Nth Sydney

I try not to say, I wish I were back in Sydney because I know it's not about where I am but who I am that matters. Occasionally though, my heart catches in my throat and I feel what I do not say to people.

I try not to go, oh we have that in Sydney and it's really good because I don't want to be one of those people who romanticise foreign lands, claiming ownership as part of an unrealistic fantasy. I'd like to think I'm pretty grounded. Today though, I caught myself saying, Back home instead of Back in Sydney like I meant. What did I mean?

I try not to think thoughts like how much more positive I felt in that beautiful city because I don't live there and there is something about impermanence that casts an extra glow across memories in the human mind. But I recall the words of the cab driver who took me to the airport on my last day when I told him that I would miss Sydney. He said, It is a beautiful city. I believe him.

I try not to feel sad that I am here and not there because this is home and I love it here in many ways; I love the people I love. Yet, as I read Gen's entry, the tears just came.

I try not to get lost in the drumming that goes on everywhere, in everything but I'm afraid that what I found will inexorably slip away. It sounds like a silly melodramatic thought as I'm writing it out but still. So every morning, I wake up early and I have breakfast the way I remember having breakfast back then. I read my Bible in my room, imagining myself next to Gen at the table with our coffees, reading together though we never really did when I was there. And I savour these moments.

To every thing there is a season and one season has passed. And what a season it was.

You know when you've found it,
There's something I've learned
'Cause you feel it when they take it away
(Amie, Damien Rice)

Darling Harbour

"Go for long walks,
indulge in hot baths.
Question your assumptions,
be kind to yourself,
live for the moment,
loosen up, scream,
curse the world,
count your blessings,
just let go,
just be."

Beautiful days.

"Love is the answer at least for most of the questions in my heart
Why are we here? And where do we go? And how come it's so hard?
It's not always easy and sometimes life can be deceiving
I'll tell you one thing, it's always better when we're together..."
(Better Together, Jack Johnson)

Once upon a time, she took a chance and made a trip to some place far away. Some place where she felt hopeful and free. As she walked along the well-worn streets, the winter wind serenaded the blue sky dressed in swirling clouds, white and creamy and pure. As she danced and skipped along the cobbled pavements, the warm winter sun looked on and felt her joy. Forgetting that she almost forgot how, she discovered that she was falling in love again. With life, with God, with herself. I need to tell someone, she thought, or else I might start to think that I'm dreaming and that one day soon, I will wake up and dream no more. But it was harder than she thought. How do you put your heart in words? She was afraid to destroy it with cliches. So she decided not to say a word except to close her eyes once in a while and smell the crisp, dry scent of winter, feel the winter breeze slip its arms around her in a strange yet familiar embrace of a long-lost lover, and hear her heart beat faster as her feet takes her down the streets of that faraway place in her mind.

Thank you Gen, from the bottom of my heart.