Saturday, August 30, 2008
Friday, August 15, 2008
Monday, August 11, 2008
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
the sun leach
everything goes smoothly on this three week holiday in the tropics. belly’s become a domed stamping ground for the green ants who every now and then find the ramp of flesh up onto her curved and kicking domain. it’s been 22 weeks now that we’ve had this symbiotic thing going – baby and i. and so even in utero heshe’s become an air traveler and a tropical dweller.
it’s a different world up here. five hours by plane from our small shack in chewton. surrounded by these strange-named seas – the arafura, the timor and the gulf of Carpentaria. on this red, sparsely-treed earth with grass that comes up to your shoulders and hides the snakes amongst it’s trusses. rustling, rustling, everything here sounds like it’s running. the billabongs and waterholes and slowly-drying up creeks. the season of water is almost over. in September everything will begin to dry up, and the heat will settle in nice and strong. terribly strong. they call it ‘the build up’. and people either go mad, escape, or have been here for so long that they’ve acclimatised. but it’s not an easy living up here, with these six seasons so clearly, so dogmatically, influencing your life.
our dear friend who owns this place is mike, the local rural doctor working in a town called Adelaide river which is just 30 or so kilometers from his 400 acre bushblock (and about 100kms from Darwin). the road into town is unlined bitumen with just enough room for two cars to pass, and it caters to every kind of vehicle at every kind of speed. mike goes to help the smashed humans and eats the smashed animals. and so benoit has learnt a lot about road kill cuisine – a degustation of camel, wallaby, olive python and wallaroo.
we spend the days up here in and around the creek. the gympies eating the dead skin from our toes and thighs. the sky is an honest blue which melts into copper for twilight when the temperature finally drops and our minds start working again. we’re slow-blooded things up here. slow to move, slow to think. basking under the cool shade of this steel house on clothe-backed chairs, sucking on the flesh of pawpaws and melons. ibis, peregrine falcons, black wedged-tail kites and crows keep us entertained with their swoops and caws. and each day is a small miracle when the long, hot hours are finally over. and we put on more clothes for the mosquitoes, which makes us feel like it’s cold.
the sun is like a great golden leach that we haven’t learnt to salt-off.
so the baby grows. and there’s dreams of small girls and small boys - the warmth of their new flesh up against my belly. another eighteen weeks until we’ll meet on the outside, until benoit will feel more then just the punch-up of belly flesh on his stretched out palm.
it’s a different world up here. five hours by plane from our small shack in chewton. surrounded by these strange-named seas – the arafura, the timor and the gulf of Carpentaria. on this red, sparsely-treed earth with grass that comes up to your shoulders and hides the snakes amongst it’s trusses. rustling, rustling, everything here sounds like it’s running. the billabongs and waterholes and slowly-drying up creeks. the season of water is almost over. in September everything will begin to dry up, and the heat will settle in nice and strong. terribly strong. they call it ‘the build up’. and people either go mad, escape, or have been here for so long that they’ve acclimatised. but it’s not an easy living up here, with these six seasons so clearly, so dogmatically, influencing your life.
our dear friend who owns this place is mike, the local rural doctor working in a town called Adelaide river which is just 30 or so kilometers from his 400 acre bushblock (and about 100kms from Darwin). the road into town is unlined bitumen with just enough room for two cars to pass, and it caters to every kind of vehicle at every kind of speed. mike goes to help the smashed humans and eats the smashed animals. and so benoit has learnt a lot about road kill cuisine – a degustation of camel, wallaby, olive python and wallaroo.
we spend the days up here in and around the creek. the gympies eating the dead skin from our toes and thighs. the sky is an honest blue which melts into copper for twilight when the temperature finally drops and our minds start working again. we’re slow-blooded things up here. slow to move, slow to think. basking under the cool shade of this steel house on clothe-backed chairs, sucking on the flesh of pawpaws and melons. ibis, peregrine falcons, black wedged-tail kites and crows keep us entertained with their swoops and caws. and each day is a small miracle when the long, hot hours are finally over. and we put on more clothes for the mosquitoes, which makes us feel like it’s cold.
the sun is like a great golden leach that we haven’t learnt to salt-off.
so the baby grows. and there’s dreams of small girls and small boys - the warmth of their new flesh up against my belly. another eighteen weeks until we’ll meet on the outside, until benoit will feel more then just the punch-up of belly flesh on his stretched out palm.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
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