Freefallin'

And I'm freeeeeeee
I'm freefallin'

Or almost. In more ways than one.

I head off to Adelaide tomorrow on a broom-broom plane for a long weekend. To herald in the beginning of winter on the calendar, my mother and I will brave the three-headed beasties otherwise known as Adelaide supporters to hopefully watch our footie team walk away with a win on Sunday at AAMI Stadium.

I plan to tourist around Adelaide central tomorrow afternoon. My auntie is picking us up. I shall wander around with my camera like a tourist and enjoy a meal together before heading back to her place at Murray Bridge.

On Monday night I will be maybe staying at my cousin's place in Mannum and Tuesday, before we head back to Melbourne, I hope to jump on Norman's back for a horsey ride. Last time I horsey rode was with the same cousin who put me on the back of an ex-racehorse. Didn't break anything when I fell off after he jumped a log, but you know, didn't feel good either :) Norman, hes way more my style. Last time I saw Norman, he was standing with his eyes closed in bliss as a woman performed reiki on his leg.

Its funny how we humans need to have meanings, rituals, symbolic beginnings and endings. We are built that way. I can see the cracks in the facades of people who do not have those things on the streets. Some days it feels like something bad is brewing. How long can people go on in such a place as this where we do so many things to no real end? Some days it is just enough to grit your teeth and hang on and pray. Little wonder people take drugs. We get our transcendence whichever way it comes.

This weekend away for me marks the beginning of the winter months. It is a time that I hope to put into practice things I have learned and grown into in the last few years. It is delicious to be beginning that time with a finished sculpture (which I probably won't be able to resist posting here even before it is fired because I am addicted to your adulation, dear reader). I feel hopeful.

I feel hopeful that new things are astirring in my life, things that give me meaning and to help me out of the fog I so easily find myself in. I feel like I have been saying that for a long time with little evidence. And yet, small things always happen with small steps. I look back over the past several years and feel like the awakening has been steady and smooth, while at the time it has felt anything but.

And so I hope for things I have been hoping for for some time: community and creativity and Christian spirituality. The three non-negotiables. The only things I need, really, for life to brim over with meaning for me. Things that involve human kindness and caring because sometimes everything feels so brittle, and I think I have spent way too much time out in the backblocks of solitude. And even though I feel excited about the coming four days spent with other people, I know that I will be interspersing those four days with bouts of solitude because it is my peace and my anchor. But how nice to be sitting in solitude while life flows around you, like water around a rock. Should be fun.

See you on the flipside