Four Seasons In One Day

I have been terrible about blogging, I know. When my journey is winding down I always kind of fall apart myself and there's no energy to describe a time so rich and full of adventure. But my post on Indonesia will come. It was remarkable.

We flew into Perth and spent several weeks with Dad. It was so so so wonderful to see him, after so many years. We had a grand time. Other than a brief side trip to the Kalbarri National Park, eight hours north, we stayed in Perth for the duration of our Western Australia visit. On this journey to Australia it was all about family for me.


The beaches in Perth are the nicest that I've seen in the world. On days when the temperature climbed above 100 degrees we visited the beach every day. We'd bring George, the dog, and he'd grandly display his neurotic tendencies while we played with the ball. (The video is one of George in the car as we drive towards the beach) On lazier days, when George was sleeping at home, we would float on our backs and let the salty waves dance our bodies out to sea and back to shore. It was hard to leave Perth and harder to leave Dad.



Now I am in Melbourne with Ross. Seriously lazy days. It has been typical Melbourne weather with 100 degree days bordering 70 days. Let me tell you my body is not used to 70 degree days! It feels frigid to me! On the Saturday before Easter we went on a decadent chocolate shop tour that I mapped through the city. We have been sloths but this trip about visiting family and that is being accomplished if nothing else is.

why does it always end like this?

my plane leaves in a few hours. of course i am panicked. i feel like i'm forgetting something. everything. my head is racing. i always feel like this until i get to the airport and then, when it's out of my hands, i relax. by tonight i'll be in thailand.

yesterday i went to rottnest island with dad. this is where his father was held as a pow in ww1 when he was fourteen. it is a gorgeous, reef bordered island and we spent all day just exploring the sand dunes and beaches, imagining my grandfather walking these sands 90 years ago. it was a beautiful day. it was surreal to be with him on that island, searching for a link that i knew almost nothing about just weeks ago. i think i learned things that i have been trying to learn for twenty years.

I do not want much of a present, anyway, this year.
After all I am alive only by accident.
-Plath

I have less than one week left in Australia.

Currently I'm in Perth, staying with dad. This weekend we went to the Margaret River area, a few hours south of the city. It was a bit damp, but a lovely area brimming with vineyards, breweries, chocolate factories, cheese makers and, further out of the valley, bordering the divinely ultramarine waters of the Indian ocean.

The week feels like it's being let down a bathtub drain. Very slowly, but you have the low gurgling to remind you that soon it will be empty and you'll soon be uncovered and chilled. While it's nice to see dad after such a long time he always makes the experience so basic. To him, it seems as if I'm returning after a school term or holiday. As if I come and go often and not, as it is, that we see each other hardly ever. He has been uncovering information about his father, who died when Dad was five. He was fifteen when he sailed into Australian territory as crew of a German merchant ship. He was captured as a Prisoner of War, though the ship was unaware WWI had even begun. He was held in Australia, first near Perth on Rottnest Island and then near Sydney. Until recently I hadn't even known my grandfather's name. Not because it was hidden or kept as a secret, but only because his side of the family doesn't discuss the past. My father's family is darkly veiled for no particular reason. Losing your father so young must make it difficult to understand the true role a father plays to a child. How does your small mind piece together the equation of family when only half the puzzle exists?

Also, I wonder if parents who have separated see their children as the glimmers or blatent characters of their former partners. And because they have lost the love for one another does seeing that similarity in their children make them lose pieces of that love? I wonder if this happens, though no thoughtful parent would admit. I wonder if this happened with my parents.