Scorcher

Thirty-seven degrees.

Seize the fluffy, small, stumpy-billed moment

This lot were among those waddling around UWA's Arts courtyard when I had business being there a month ago.

I am of the "fluffy = adorable = where's my camera?" persuasion, which can be awkward on days when you've chosen to use the oversize tote with but one compartment and are holding abstracts from the conference on music and emotion in one hand, tea and a scone in the other.

But you do what you have to, because ducklings don't stay ducklings forever.

It isn't that the conference was such a drag that I had to go looking for fowl to photograph, or stay awake by posing donkey and conference materials just so. It was an interesting, eclectic three days. I made friends with an Iban girl studying music education in KL and an Australian Chinese doing her PhD in Spanish piano music at my alma mater. ("Friends" of the sort you have animated, stimulating conversations with at lunch and tea breaks but know you're unlikely ever to meet again.) Made contact with music therapy types. Listened to findings from music therapy studies on all sorts of populations: old, intellectually challenged, dying, friendly. Revised a long-ago lesson: People who can write up an interesting session abstract are not necessarily as gifted at making the actual session work. Watched a Japanese dude concentrate really hard on a score as a computer read his brain waves and played the music for all to hear.

And yet, when it was all over, I didn't wish that I could keep on listening to talks and learning from people who've done the hard yards with their clients... what I wished for was time to return to the courtyard soon with a book, beverage and sandwich, and all the time I wanted to sit and read and listen and watch ducks. A wish that has high chances of coming true.

Easy

... like Friday mornin'.

The return of Christmas

Decade-old aversion to Christmas trees broken.

Line from poignant not-quite-Christmas*, yet still moving, "Christmas" song fulfilled.

Donkey unintentionally made to resemble Dame Edna.

What a full Sunday, and what a good weekend. Thank you, Perth northern suburbs friends and family.

*I don't think Christmas is Christmas unless it makes direct reference to Christ, which means I don't think 'When Christmas Comes To Town' is a Christmas song in spite of its title. But it is nice.

Heigh ho, heigh ho

It's off to work we go! The donkey too? You bet your stripey socks. We don't stock pickaxes in this house (or in most counselling offices) but a well-loved Muji pen does the trick.

I'm glad I woke up early enough to post this before I set off. It would have been that much harder to rhyme "ho" with "went".

Poised

Hello, horizon.

7: Stationery

Town Hall Square Library Link, Sydney

This is what I'm likely to have with me on any given day: donkey, blank book, pens -- alongside the things more typically found in a handbag. (Keys, sunglasses, phone, camera, yes; five colours of lipstick, no. Maybe "typically" wasn't the best choice of words.) It isn't great for the shoulder, but at least I'm never caught without a place to write down a sudden observation/story idea.

I have a special place in my heart for inexpensive writing implements that write reliably and maintain their nib integrity up to the last drop of ink. I like even more that this Pilot G-1 (my favourite inexpensive reliable model of pen, most vexatiously not sold in Australia) in the picture has an old-fashioned price tag on it, and it's even reinforced with sellotape to prevent customers' itchy fingers from peeling it off. On that price tag is the logo of the stationery shop a few roads behind my family home in PJ, a shop that has been there since my childhood. My brother, youngest ketchup sister and I used to walk over as a special after-lunch treat on some days. The dim, dusty aisles topped with tidy rows of decorated pencils, arranged by design and lead colour, were fascinating to pre-formal schooling me.

It's no longer dim and dusty; some years ago the owner put in air conditioning and rearranged things a bit, probably wiping things along the way. But whenever I'm back it's still my go-to place -- to stockpile pen refills, of course, but also to browse other Malaysian stationery shop ephemera: badminton racquets, harmonicas, ping-pong nets, carrom men, ledgers, fishing rods, hula hoops. Things that can't be labelled stationery by any stretch of the imagination. So maybe it's not only stationery that I have a weakness for; it's the idea that it is possible to endure without conforming to a label.

10: Ocean

For an inland family, we spent a lot of time by the ocean when I was younger. My parents had membership at a club in Port Dickson and there was a time, hard as it is to believe now, when everyone was not too busy/distracted/angry for the two-hour southward drive to be made frequently.

Another big source of childhood memories is spending school holidays in Pangkor with my mother's family. Other than Thailand, this small island served well as an annual holiday destination. It was conveniently located almost exactly halfway between Penang and PJ, making it not too far a drive for any of us.

This is my memory of Pangkor, a place I've never visited since our last family holiday there in either 1992 or 1994:

The long drive up to Lumut (remember, there was once a time when Malaysia didn't have an expressway along its whole length? When all journeys were long and fraught with unhappiness for those drivers who cannot stand to be stuck behind a smoky, clattering lorry on a single-lane trunk road, and for passengers of said drivers?). A happy reunion with my aunts, uncles, cousins and sometimes grandmother. Parking the cars in the open-air lot near the petrol station. Gathering luggage and children, beach toys and inflatable dinghy, and walking to the jetty to wait for the ferry. I have no idea what the ferry service looks like now, not having taken that trip since I was 14 or younger, but I remember it to be an oligopoly of mostly family-owned firms. Each had a small number of vessels painted in a signature colour. That palette seems to speak for an entire era of limited paint colours, especially waterproof paint colours. There was green, the pale green of enamel drinking cups, and yellow-beige, and a lurid blue that kind of made you want to sing the Smurf song all the way over to the island, all together, as loud as your little lungs could manage. I won't say this actually happened. (I am surprised at how youthful our parents remained, in spite of us.)

Once on Pangkor, we'd check in to our accommodation: the old government-owned guest house when that still existed; a no-star beach motel once the guest house was decommissioned. That I say the motel had no stars is no indication of its quality. I'm just trying to introduce you to the island as I remember it before the developers for international hospitality chains swooped in and started building brand-name hotels. The Pangkor we knew as children was a place where accommodation was fancy if you could lock the door -- or, actually, if it had a door to begin with. The room might come with mosquito netting, sometimes for a price, but insisting on air-conditioning was what officially set you apart as a gringo. The rooms were clean and had attached bathrooms, and the showers even had hot water. There were showers; you didn't even have to take splash baths with a dipper from a built-in open-topped tank. What else could you ask for?

There would be fresh seafood at every meal, as befits an island holiday. Whole days were spent on the beach building and renovating sand castles. Often we'd be building the same sand castle for a week, because even though the beach was public and popular nobody went out of their way to wreck someone else's work. Rain didn't deter us so long as there was no lightning; we were going to be wet anyway. My father would use the rough weather to teach me how to dodge and dive into waves, a skill he learnt well in his athletic youth in the choppy waters surrounding Penang. Of course, he couldn't have known his daughter would grow up into someone who rarely spends any amount of time in water that isn't chlorinated and tidily contained in a lane-divided indoor pool.

At night, in those days when open burning was not illegal and the air was pristine enough for us not to mind polluting it a little, my uncle the Scout master would supervise the building of a campfire. We'd sit around it and have a singalong, listening to stories from these great big grown-ups who can't possibly have been children like us once, and what outrageous children too. It seemed just a little unfair that these sometime hellions, now respectably settled in the middle class, expected their offspring to be buttoned-up good kids. Just metres away, the waves would roll and recede, their voice remaining for all my life as a sound of safety and identity, good times and warm relationship.

Sorrento Beach, Western Australia

This was the answer that came to me as I drove along the coast the other day, windows down so that I could hear the surf even when the road dipped too low for me to see it. I wondered, why does the ocean mean so much to someone who was born and bred inland? What is it that draws me there time and again when I need comfort or perspective, and why does the sound of waves make me want to sing? Then the memories tumbled in with the waves, and for a moment I was home.

Hello, who's there?

Blogger tells me there are people -- a surprising number -- viewing this blog. And here I've been thinking that I'm talking to myself. (Okay, and my Facebook contacts.) Thanks for dropping by! I hope you're actual human beings and not, like, Internet-crawling algorithms with a stuffed donkey fetish. Well, even if you are...

Who are you? Would you please drop me a comment so that I know?

27: Travel

Some reasons why travel is one of the big things in my life:

1. It forces the ol' brain to develop new neural pathways as I figure out routes to unfamiliar destinations. Not only does this apparently lower the risk of my someday developing Alzheimer's; it's making me smarter now.
2. It relieves me of the occasional temptation to sink into comfort and complacency. Things are less easily taken for granted when even the most basic of affairs, like ordering a drink, becomes an exercise in daring.
3. It shows me something of who the Other People in this world are. Not just what they do, how they spend and what they wear, but how they interact with their loved ones and how they treat the less fortunate in their societies. (It also says something about a place when there are no seemingly no homeless, no mentally disturbed or substance affected people on the streets. Leads to the question: are they not there at all... are have they been put away somewhere to make the picture prettier?)
4. It satisfies the curious, adventuresome side of me that wants more than the same, known landscape day after day after day. Sure, the unknown can be scary... but turning it into the known is usually fun or, at bare minimum, enriching.
5. It sharpens my appreciation of what's already before me all the time in said landscape.

In my mid-20s when I was back in the Klang Valley workforce, the four years after I returned from Sydney and before I returned to Sydney, I would often have this sharp longing to be back in Sydney because I knew that chapter of my life hadn't completely come to a close yet. What kept me grounded, and possibly made my eventual return to Sydney go a lot more smoothly despite the odd injury and career-altering change, was my resolution to first enjoy all that home offered me. I made myself aware that where I lived year-round was a dream holiday destination for some and economic situation booster for others. (I had a hard time convincing myself, but all those maids and construction workers aren't pouring in just because they like to risk their lives building stuff under sparsely regulated safety conditions or leave their own children behind to look after a stranger's.) I chose to see where I was as the best place for me to be at that moment. And although I had to leave behind the people I love most, I had to tell myself -- as I do still -- that I travel not to get away, but to go towards something good, to the place that's best for me to be in next.

Pub goer

At the Rosemount listening to a new friend's open mic. The beer is a prop; neither donkey nor owner are fond of tipple. (I doubt the donkey is fond of anything. It's a stuffed toy.)

Hot water

The importance of good web design: an illustrated account perhaps made ironic by my blog's lack thereof

Well, West End Deli,

If you hadn't created a website,

If you hadn't seen to it that its design is clean, photography well-lit and nicely composed, online menus and blog posts kept up to date,

If you hadn't stuck tidily to the one typeface that is, thankfully for you, not Comic Sans,

I might not have felt that I had to pay you a visit in person

and then I wouldn't have seen your pastry counter, with its typewritten signs and tempting petits fours (not pictured, thanks to my composition that needs a little more work than yours).

And a donkey would not have had a jar of brown sugar cubes upon which to be set (irrelevant aside: the donkey was named "Sugarcube" by the manufacturer. "Mo" comes from the experience which led to its becoming my donkey).

And I wouldn't have known that you make magnificently rich crepes, offset by the zingy rhubarb compote and pistachios, which made me want to go home and try making my own. (It's not you, it's me; I have this insatiable need to replicate tasty things other people have cooked for me.)

But whether I succeed or not, I hope to see you again soon. Those petits fours are calling me.

The road to New Norcia

It was the kind of road trip that begins with a prayer and a scenic detour to show off the river, in all its glimmering splendour, to the visitor from Singapore.

The kind with a food stop just shy of an hour in, because hunger comes at least every two waking hours for some of us. (Namely me.)

The kind where an observant eye allows you to spot a billboard advertising what looks like a promising purveyor of baked goods, and you pull into a service road a few kms down the pike when all you're thinking of is your hunger and you never even realise that you've managed to pull right in front of said bakery.

The kind where you order a pizza each from behind the glass and the lady asks if you'd like them heated up, you say yes, and later in the car you open the paper bag to see darkened grill marks. The disfigurement proves worth the taste: crunchy savour rather than chewy, soggy microwave stodge. The moist sweetness of fresh tomato and the taste of soft, yeasty white bread -- a rarity in a wholegrain life -- gives the carb boost needed to get to our destination, the monastery town a whole thirty minutes away.

The kind where we overshoot the destination but don't mind a whit, because the country is so pretty and there are horses -- no, wait, those are cows, she corrects herself time and again -- to look at along the way.

The kind where you begin with no expectations, and find yourself most richly rewarded because every moment is gold and you know we humans always sell ourselves short, so there's no way you could have expected highly enough.

The kind where laughter is free-flowing and conversation unreserved and silences, when they come, are not awkward.

The kind where you arrive at the monastery town and know it's not a place for the average point-and-gawk tourist; somehow that makes you feel more welcome.

The kind where you linger and gaze while, for a change, using your camera sparingly. There are other ways to take pictures.

The kind where you wish you could stay a little longer, but you don't regret having to leave because your life away from here is just as peaceful, just as rich, just as spiritual. Or it can be.

The kind where you agree on the return journey to go back to the same bakery for a "real" lunch, because the pizzas were that tasty. One of you grabs the rare opportunity to sit outdoors and not perspire while the other stays on the warm side of the glass, reading old newspapers and colouring word art in her journal, and there's contentment all around.

Altogether a nice kind of road trip.

Today in Fremantle

After a surprisingly energetic wind had battered my ears and sent my balance wonky, after I had survived a blackly comical circular dance with my wind-whipped umbrella, after coming close to being knocked out cold and turned monocular by said umbrella;

After a late lunch of fish 'n' chips under shelter where my ears could stop stinging and my vertical orientation return, after reading another few emails exchanged between Solrun and Steinn, after being given a bag of hemp fabric swatches by a friendly shopwoman, after I stumbled upon the felt shop I had so hoped I'd find despite not having its address;

I wandered from the bustling heart of town until I reached South Beach, and saw this,

and remembered:

The light is always worth whatever happens along the way. And a thousand times more.

Under Cover

It's a wet, grey Queen's Birthday (eastern states only).

Best not to forget your umbrella, if you're brave enough to step outdoors.

Mexican night

Last dinner at Northside for a while. It was a few nights ago, but time flies when you're having trouble deciding what goes into the same box as eight years' worth of journals.

There's so much goodness waiting to meet me out west, but there are also many things I'll miss over on this side. This is one of them.

Chocolatey day

Such an innocuous beginning in a little cup of hot chocolate. Who could have foreseen the elevated heart rates, the increasing silliness, the sensation of being detached from our bodies, the impending prospect of crashing hard in a sugar-and-caffeine slump not an hour after the last fateful sip?

(But if I had it to do over again, I would, oh I would.)

Later that night, the big fondue set made its debut. Because hair of the dog is the only real way to get over anything.

Kitchen assistant

Nice to have a donkey around to keep your carrot stack in perspective.

I think we're good with the carrots.

How about cabbage?

Mmm... let's see. Are we good?

How much cabbage did you say we needed?

Mmyeah I guess there is enough cabbage.

Avocadoed

Lots, and lots, and lots of avocado. The generous giving of friends who had a bumper harvest travelled far, to a friend's family, to a friend's daughter's friend, to a friend's daughter's friend's cousins.

What do you do when there's so much avocado in the house?

Here's a sweet idea: chocolate avocado cupcakes. With a tart raspberry centre.

And a savoury one: cheese, bacon and avocado muffins.

Another savoury one: avocado and bacon scones.

We haven't run out yet. I wonder if guacamole will make an appearance.