I, human
Luton airport as a last goodbye to London is a bit of a comedown... but the preceding week was high with a no-shoes-please party after which Jake went home wearing Nico's and Nico went home in nought but his patriotic, Aussie flag socks. Nico (aghast): 'where are my shoes', Jake (confused): 'why are my feet so sore'... and B and me waiting at Angel in the next day's drizzle, watching Jake sheepishly approach the 'shoe exchange' wearing his only other pair––some rather snazzy, but Sunday-strange dress shoes.
Fantastic friends and one last free philosophy lecture on existentialism, and I had to admit it had all been pretty great, if at times frustrating. Serendipitous then that the morning my leave to remain expired (and to where and what, who knew) I got news of a job offer from Carriageworks––a multi-arts centre in Sydney. Any creeping sense of failure at departing a demi-philosopher turned on its head, and despite leaving so many great things behind, I was suddenly excited about the future.
But immediately, there was the matter of the van der Lans clan initiation which is 'Winter sports' and which variously involved waking up at 3:30am for the 10 hour drive to Austria, flinging myself inelegantly down red runs, eating my body weight in bread and cheese, sharing naming rights with Amy-the-dog, and creatively but politely saying no to dessert (first dessert and second dessert), still recovering as it was from early-evening deep-fried sugar-encrusted treats.
Driving across Germany, we passed road signs for places like Bad Homburg and Bad Meinburg, and I'd shake my head, 'tut-tut-tut, Bad Homburg', and B would say 'THE WORST! It's true. Important people told me.' And we'd laugh until the next sign, and do it all again, and laugh some more. It was by now around 5am and doing a very respectable 140-150kmph, B would be overtaken by a flying VW or BMW, and I'd say 'see, real Germans, not like those FAKE GERMANS, the Dutch!' And like the rest of the world, we tried to keep our spirits up by laughing about it all, unsure how else to pass off the madness...
A week later I was in Hong Kong in positively double digit degrees, met by the wide smile of SG who whisked me away to his little Lamma Island paradise where he and AC maintain their perky physiques by living atop a dramatically steep hill. On these hilly isles, the civil engineering merit of retaining walls isn't matched by the unfortunate decision of the monitoring body to drill the plaque: ‘slope registration' into every cement reinforcement. Construction is rampant, life is vibing, the green is receding and the sky sags under the weight of pollution. You can feel the curve of the earth here...
I'm at the airport this very minute, waiting for my flight south to Sydney. A very different life awaits. For a start, I may be able to replace these hole-filled clothes and retire B's borrowed jeans (also at risk of splitting any moment now). I'm already booked in for a haircut, and as for the job, well it might do something to legitimise the self. Once again, poor long suffering and most excellent parentals will take me in til payday, so for anyone Sydney-side, you'll find me in Maroubra with the frogs et al. May the adventures continue.
The view from above––Mittleberg and the Mid-levels.