Urge For Going

"I get the urge for going, but I never seem to go."

I have written all the letters, signed all the forms, test-packed and wrapped up my things, closed my bank account, and drank my last beer.  I'm rocking on my heels in the doorway, looking out at a gunmetal sky.

Tasmania, you have burrowed a seed in my stomach that will grow branches into a new, beautiful life.

Everyone, my new loved ones, thank you.  Our dance never ends, the music is just harder to hear.

Farewell.

Frayed Shoelaces and Open Hands

My time here draws to a close.  I have until December the sixth in this fine place.  The past month has been a mad tumult of exams, bushwalks, car camping, dancing, and playing music.  I'm becoming tired.  But that isn't to say I'm ready to go.  No, I'll never be ready to leave Tasmania, but I'll have to all the same.  There are frayed shoelaces that keep tickling the back of my neck tracing all the way back to Charleston.  Soon enough, I'll have to follow those laces back.  My time here has been, utterly, the most sublime period of my life.  Nothing will be the same after this: my life is destined for new things, now.  I am not a winsome fool any longer.  I have found what I truly need in this place and, though I am leaving quite soon, I am changed, changed utterly, for the better.  I'm sorry for those back home who won't understand this: I hardly do, myself.  But, don't worry, everything is getting better, all the time, and I am bound for good things.  Hobart, I'm not gone yet, we still have a few weeks yet.  And New Zealand, just you wait.  Charleston, it will be all too soon.
I will walk this earth and call each stream and road home.
I will open myself to every city and field, person and animal,
that occupy and create this wide world.

Home-Awareness

It's not homesickness, but home-awareness, that fills my thoughts today.  For several days, in fact, I've had images and sounds and tastes coursing through my mind as I walk the streets of Hobart and play the music of it's occupants.  I don't yearn for Charleston, but I am nevertheless becoming increasingly aware of it's facets.  I have double vision, so to speak: I see Hobart and Charleston simultaneously.
You learn so much about the places in which you've grown up when you're thousands of miles away.  It's all a kind of double vision, both posterity and the present registering in your thoughts, making up your thoughts.

I presented my final sculpture project today in a rain-misted morning (again).  This project was two piece mould-making--I choose a cell phone--and I was able to successfully cast nine mobile telephones.  These I arranged on a tapioca-coloured sheet with twine, q-tips, and brushes.  My theme is simple, two-fold, and surprisingly indicative of my current double vision: I presented these nine mobile telephones as exhumed artifacts of a lost age, cast in terracotta and arranged like an archaeological field table.

I broke a window last Friday night.  My window, in fact.  I merely leaned against it for upwards of twenty seconds and it came crashing down around me.  Cut up my ankles and legs, even nicked my shoulder.  I finally got around to visiting the TUU (sort of the student union / the folks from whom I'm renting) today only to find that it is, more or less, my responsibility to fix the window as soon as possible.  It's a good thing my monies came through from home, then, huh?  Furthermore, I'm leaving Saturday morning for a five day bushwalk along the Tasman Coastal Trail, which means I need to get the window fixed before then.  Further, furthermore, it is made apparent to me that I need to complete all of my in-house recording for my Foundation Audio projects by Friday because they're all due next Friday--and, seeing as I'll be gone most of the time from now until then, it is imperative that I complete the rough recording tomorrow, or Thursday at the latest.

So now, I'm trying to melt my back into the cheap chair the TUU provided me in my room, nursing a Cascade pale ale, and listening to Radiohead and Skip James, trying to just make it all come together.  And it will.  I hope.

The Weather Dance

It's been some time since last I spoke here.  Almost a month, in fact.  In that time I've experienced much: bushwalks galore, entertaining sculpture projects, music, music, music, and Sytske visiting for her term break.  In fact, last week alone I scaled four mountains!  Incredible times, especially when I fell into the Ladies' Tarn on what I presumed to have been non-slippery rocks.  Luckily, David and Cathy had spare thermals for me to throw on, or that would have been one chilly bushwalk.
Time keeps chugging along.  Taking my life here away so quickly, but not yet!  The semester's about to end, which means I get to do some serious bushwalking and travelling now!  So long as I can balance out my checkbook, that is.
Tonight my housemates are throwing a "black-light party."  (This should be interesting).  I'll be arriving late because Danceaholics Unanimous is tonight and I've missed the past two sessions / there aren't that many left for me.
I happened across a movie on the tv yesterday--Kill Bill Vol. 1.  I couldn't help but feel a visceral apprehension at seeing Uma Thurman driving on the right side of the road.  My first thought was, "she's gonna hit oncoming traffic!"  Clearly, I have been here in Tassie for quite some time.  I love it!
Now is the time for me to start making plans for my return and the Spring back home.  I'm working on my schedule, working on work, a place to live, what to do and who to see.  Maybe, just maybe, I'll be kicking it on Folly Beach in a huge place with awesome folks for cheap.
I hear someone knocking on the door; it must be my hunger.  I'm going to go get some grub, catch you later.

P.S. The weather is getting gorgeous!  Nice 70's a lot of the time, except rainy today.  As such, I'm in the exact same weather as Charleston, for now.

Fear and Loathing Inside an Alarm Clock

 Today is September 12, 2010.  I arrive in Charlotte, North Carolina on December 22.  I only have 103 days.  Never have I thought such a passage of time short, but now I can't help but loose a tear thinking, my god, it's just too damn soon.  I love you, Charleston, Mom, Dad, Amelia, Randy, College of Charleston, the east coast, Tim, Aubrey, Virginia, MJ, but it's just too damn soon.  I don't want to turn around just yet.  Each day passes and I settle a little more into Hobart and Australia.  I've found beautiful new friendships full of promises and potentials, but tonight, lying on my bed, my neck bent against my headboard and aching, I can't help but think I'm going to disappear before any of those potentials can be exacted.  All of the incredible musicians and music circles and dances around Hobart have opened their arms to me, and I am utterly happy to be a part of them, but I cry when I remember that I'll only be able to play with these people, learn these songs, indulge in these jams, for a short time yet.  This entire lifestyle that I have cultivated here, in Hobart, is so mercilessly temporary.
But, you know it, all things fade.  This is my situation: I have 103 days to live here, and I intend to do so as wholeheartedly as I can.  There is so much beauty here, I won't let it down by withdrawing into a shell just because high noon is past and the sun's begun to sink.  Man may thrive in the sunlight, but there is also beauty in the coming moon.

"The Only Moment We Were Alone" is how I feel right now.  Listen.

Term Break and a Wicked Van (Oh, and the JB Dream)

Last week.  Pure heaven.  Ian, myself, Kat, Anne, Julia, Michael, and Patrick cruised all across Tassie's east coast, north coast, and right down the center of the island back to Hobart.  We scaled Mt. Amos, watched Wineglass Bay and the coming rains, traipsed through dunes and dunes onto beach after beach along the Bay of Fires, followed wallabies, wombats, pattymelons, and opossums across Narawntapu National Park, drove through kilometres and kilometres of gorgeous, soaring fields and hills of sheep, hops, hay, and cattle, crossed mountain passes and followed the rim of the Great Lakes of Tasmania's highlands, tasted home-brewed stouts, ales, and porters, fresh-farmed cheese and milk, many, many sausages, and a strong concentration of ultrapasturized milk-n-cereal.  All this and more.  Please, check out the photos I've uploaded to understand the nature of the beauty I've been experiencing for the past week.  As a result, I've swam in the Tasman ocean, scaled its mountains, and eaten peanut butter sandwiches high above its beaches and plains.  I've even learned how to drive stick in a very hilly country that drives on the left side of the road and has the gears on the left side of the car!  I apologize again for any and all who had to be on the road when Ian or I were driving.  I'll tell you, the most sublime feeling I've had in quite some time was Wednesday, on the Bay of Fires, when I was climbing the rocks out into the clear surf, following the smell of salt and the sound of crashing rollers.  I eventually scrambled out as far as I could go and sat down on the wet, shell-smeared stone.  I watched those waves for a long time.  Utter and complete, my rapture.  I will return there when next I am able.  I could easily see myself living on the coast of Tasmania, raising sheep on the beach, for a couple of years.  I could easily see myself lost to the world for this place.  But, I have miles to go before my rest.
Upon my return, no rest for such as I (or for the wicked, as they say--thank you, Wicked Van), for Ian and I were slated to play at a friend's wedding, which we did.  It was wonderful to see a successful wedding dance party, and to play for them (we even got paid)!  Come Sunday I had a few hours to rest before heading to the Derwent Entertainment Centre for the John Butler Trio!  I arrived at 5:45, the show began at 8:20, ended at 11:35, I arrived back home at 1:00 (taxis were, well, overtaxed), and I'll never be the same.  One of my life goals had been achieved that night.  I was lucky enough to record John Butler playing "Spring," an old number he doesn't play for shows much anymore, before segueing into "Ocean."  If you listen carefully to my recording, you can hear me crying.  It is a testament to the power of his zeal that, even though his newest album is very poptastic and lacking in the raw beauty of his earlier works, he and his new lineup (Byron Luiters and Nicky Bomba) were able to kick some SERIOUS ass for almost two and a half hours.
In one utterly jam packed week, my quality of life has improved drastically.  I can't wait till the semester closes and I'm free again.

Spring Break Comes

It's time!  I'm halfway through the semester (horrifying, isn't it?), which means that Spring Break is nigh!  Come Monday morning Ian and I are picking up a Wicked Van to tour around Tassie with for the entire week.  We'll be caravaning with a bunch of awesome German folks, and our American friend Kat.  As such, I'll only be taking my phone with me, so no internet action (or at the very least, a quick email check at a hostel).  We get back Saturday night in time for a wedding gig Sunday.

Oh, and Cathy is loaning us an old mandolin to mess around with.  The little buggers are mucho easy to play and pick up melodies with--I can't wait to bust out some awesome campfire jams.

Well, I hate to wax brief, but I gotta get up quite early to help Becca haul her gear to the Uni, then get the van and hit the road, so off I am to sleep.  Farewell!