can’t sleep won’t sleep too hot too dry too cold too excited too homesick. 11 hours apart for two more months, both of us lying awake in our small hours, restless. legs and feet itching to go out.
i scroll through photographs i have seen so many times. different ones jump out this time. how did i miss them even on the 50th pass? years on they tell different narratives each time. i miss the space. the sun so bright and the light metering imprecise so the sky is blown out. oh for a sky that is so boldly radiant that it becomes white.
it’s been two years now, since i first left. weird. since lavender skies and losing the stars under the sydney smog. i miss the subarus of my hometown. the one lost in the fires. the one i drove down my first dirt road. the beat up outback, and your hands on the sunny wheel. i miss them all.
if i come home, i want to get in the car and drive. get that tan line from long sleeves and a thousand kilometres under the belt. i miss driving. i miss the trees, dry, crackling leaves. underfoot, in the fires, crackling and rustling. i want to walk in ku ring gai chase like we did when we were little. to the soft sand where the animal tracks are, and back.
i miss driving mates home after dark. toyota, subaru, mazda. the quiet conversation there, the wild contentment driving back. i want to drive myself home to the bush and the scent of dust and roo poo. tuck myself in on the ground, and see the familiar stars. if there was time i would ride. i will one day.
