Duelling With Devils

Theme Songs of the Day:

1. "Paper Aeroplanes", by Angus & Julia Stone
2. "Only Love Can Break Your Heart", by Neil Young
3. "Neopolitan Dreams", by Lisa Mitchell
   

MAP OF TASMANIA, CIRCA 1916
APPROX 240KM SOUTH OF MELBOURNE

I'm going to Tassie. Tasmania, that is.

When I share that with the locals in Melbourne, I get one of two responses:

1. "Why??"
2. "Aw, yeahhhh, Tassie is BEAUTIFUL!"
   

I've heard that Tasmanian Devils really do spin around like in the Loony Tune cartoons. I've heard that Tasmanian Tigers aren't really extinct, if you know where to look for them. I've heard that some of the wildest places on earth are still pristine and hiding in this little corner or the world that most of mainland Australia has forgotten.

My travel companion for this leg of my journeys is Jill Rushton, the lovely Canadian that I met in Maui earlier this year at a pivotal time in my life:

After Christmas 2008, I sank rapidly into a fairly deep depression in which I did not make it out the front door of my house for most of January. I would lie awake at night waiting for sleep to arrive, listening to my inner monologue loop endlessly around thoughts of "Why did/didn't I do this; Why am I so far away from where I should be; How in the hell did I get myself into this mess; How the hell am I going to ever get myself out of this mess; Who do I think I am [bloody useless fool]; yadda-ydadda-yadda-doom-and-gloom-ever-downward-spiraling-blah-blah-blah......"

In the morning I would awake and lie catatonic, staring at the wall for an hour or so before mustering up the courage to get up and have a shower to face the sunlight. Being surrounded by so much natural beauty didn't help at all; it only heightened the contrast between how I felt within and the cheery surroundings without. I kept the blinds over the window to wallow in as much darkness as I could and found solace by distracting my mind with hours of mindless sessions on YouTube watching conspiracy theory movies, alien encounter clips, and other random obscurities.

My brother was a great support to me in this period, holding a safe space for me to move through this process, giving me room and permission to wallow without judging me, as if he knew all along that I wouldn't allow myself to linger for too long in this place of self-pity.

"I don't feel like doing anything, or seeing anyone today," I would announce gloomily. "Then don't!" was his cheerful reply.

I've never understood people who have had challenges with "depression", rather heartlessly writing the condition off as a sign of a weak and undisciplined mind. It's not. It is very real, and can be very scary - even to the most self-aware individuals. Depression is a very elusive, seductive creature: it beckons silently to you, lulling you into a sense of security and then drowning you in your own heavy thoughts. I can see now how the weight of it all could quickly add up and become unbearable, especially without the love and support of family and friends around you.

After a week or two of moping around the house all day and feeling lousy, I forced myself to get out into the sunshine, into nature, and do something, anything I could find joy in. This is when I started blogging, volunteering, hiking, sailing, swimming, surfing....anything to get me out of the house and having fun.

This was also a time to make peace with some lingering open wounds upon my heart, and move on into the next phase of relationship where you allow yourself to enjoy a person for who they are, wherever they are at, warts, old hurts, and all. After a two-year absence, I returned to Maui for Chinese New Year's Celebrations, which had become such a big part of my previous life, and was welcomed back with open arms, as if I had never left.

So it was there that I met The Canadian, her travel companion Kristen, and their chaperone [the perpetually hungover] Knuckles Tulio while stealing away to the hot-tub to relax muscles sore from a day's worth of Lion Dance and Kung-Fu performances. After two years fighting tooth-and-nail against brain cancer, Jill has recently lost the most important person in her life , and has embarked upon a journey to "rediscover both what's important to me and what makes me who I am." You can read her blog by clicking here.

Here I am, after moping around for the last month or so about losing everything, reawakened and finally enjoying all the beauty of life surrounding me... my breath is knocked out of me and silent tears stream down my face as I discover her story and see Facebook photos of good times....recent good times....shared with a loved one who has only recently left us. And again, I am reminded of what is truly important, and how lucky I really am. And of how beautiful, cruel, and beautiful life can be.

That experience has humbled me, and deepened my appreciation for the beauty of people and places surrounding me. I hope I never lose this perspective.

We're never really alone, are we? Our experiences may feel like we are the only ones going through this, indeed who has ever and will ever go through whatever it is that we are going through at that time... but the fact is that we are all more similar than we are diferent. We can find more that we relate to in others, than we can often find in ourselves. There is comfort and solace in the bond that exists between those who have had a shared, or shared a similar exerience. And we are all sharing a very similar experience - it's called the human experience.

"Are we human beings having a spiritual experience?
Or are we spiritual beings having a human experience?"
-overheard at a cafe, a long time ago-

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The Canadian has been traveling throughout Australia spending time with friends across the continent, blogging about her journeys here. The plan is to meet up in Melbourne, and head down to Tassie to share the cost of a campervan to explore the island for a week.

I've organized a stay with Peter Bedford, whose CouchSurfing profile says that he lives on 60 acres of wild bush in the mountains of Tasmania where "he and his family and working towards creating a self-sufficient lifestyle." Sounds wild.

The Guidebook to Hiking in Tasmania that I bought describes some amazingly beautiful multi-day treks, which I hope to somehow accomplish despite our lack of cold-weather gear. There is no agenda other than to explore, experience, and explore some more.

I am really looking forward to getting on the road again with new friends, and to making even more new friends, and to learning whatever lessons Tasmania has in store.

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Chloe

YOUNG & JACKSON'S PUB,
HOME OF GRANDPA'S FAMOUS GIRLFRIEND:
CHLOE

The first time I ever saw a naked woman was at a bar with my Grandpa.

My Grandpa, Keith Lynch, owned the McKinnon pub [about 1/2 mile away from where Mum & Dad live today], and brought up Dad and his 3 brothers here; as a result the Lynch men are a very colorful bunch...our family get-togethers are always fascinating affairs!

The misadventures of the Lynch boys growing up in and around the pub would make for a great novel: pet snakes escaping into the neighborhood, unexpected overnight stays in the walk-in fridge, fast cars, and the girls next-door to name a few...but these are other stories that will be told another time...

This is a Grandpa Keith story [of which there are also a great many tales of misadventure], and I digress.

In 1985, the year before we moved to Oz, Dad took me on a scouting trip to Melbourne to prepare for the family's move the following year.

Grandpa was, of course, tickled to see his eldest son's eldest son come to Melbourne for the first time and took it upon himself to show me around. He booked us an all-day bus tour [highly recommended!] which included, among other things, a visit to Healsville Sanctuary to see a real live kangaroo, and a stop at Ferguson's Winery for lunch and a tour. breakfast that day was my first Aussie four'n'twenty meatpie [no the ketchup did not look like that on my pie]...

Long story short, after the tour was over and Grandpa had charmed all the ladies on the tour bus over lunch at the winery, he says, "I want to introduce you to my girlfriend", and takes me to the famous Young & Jackson's Hotel, across from Flinders Street station at the entrance to Melbourne central business district.

Grandpa sits me down at the bar, my 8-year old legs dangling off the barstool as I peer over the countertop, and orders himself a pint of beer, and me a shirley temple.

We sip our drinks and then raise our glasses to toast his girlfriend, "To Chloe!".... who is the 12 foot high nude oil painting hanging on the wall next to the bar!

"Sweet things do not go well
with a bitter Aussie lager -
Chloe is an exception"
-Rafal Zakrzewski, Beer Historian (2001)-

Today, the bar is different that I remember. My feet no longer dangle from the barstools, and I can lean over the countertop to order my own beer. Chloe now lives upstairs, overlooking the busy intersection that is home to Federation Square, St Paul's Cathedral, and Flinders Street Station.

I take a moment to myself today and climb the upstairs to visit her; she hasn't aged a day. As I hoist my glass to toast her, an old digger and his wife wink at me and comment about the gleam in my eye.

Here's to Chloe!

TO CHLOE!
AND TO YOU, GRANDPA...



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Green Point

SUNSET AT GREEN POINT

Yesterday I sat at my old thinking spot and watched the sun go down.

I hop along the basalt blocks that make up the breakwater and I am ten years old again, picking my way across the tidepools at BlackRock and exploring the Red Bluffs, survival kits made of matchboxes and stuffed full of string, matches, sandpaper, a magnifying glass for burning ants, and other essentials in case we kids got stranded and had to spend the night on the cliffs [not likely under the watchful eye of the Beach Rd mansions that look out across the bay].

The water of Port Phillip laps gently at my feet, its surface tension palpable, like a vast rippling carpet gently rolling to the horizon. It is tempting to step onto it and start walking out towards the light. The indigos and oranges of the setting sun dance and shifting, allowing me fleeting glimpses of the rocky bottom beneath the surface. The air is still, crisp, and cold against my cheeks ...this was where I was to come for solitude in later years, after I had made friends with this new place.

I went to elementary school not five minutes from here, my first introduction to Aussie culture when the family moved to Melbourne 21 years ago. Melbourne was cold and grey and unfriendly at that time in my life, full of spoiled little rich kids teasing my American - pidgin english and dark skin, distinctly uncomfortable in my new, alien, british-style school uniforms [socks pulled over calves, shorts above the knees, shirt tucked in, tie and coat to pull the whole ensemble together...].

The awkwardness of being a pre-teen while my older classmates were beginning puberty only added to the confusion finding myself in the midst of transitioning to a new country, a new culture, a new life. I tried out many different identities and began asking myself, "Who am I?" In so many ways, I am still on that quest, and still asking that question.

AFTERGLOW

The Bay has many moods - the water is always freezing cold - the complete opposite of the tepid bathwater-temperatures of Hawaii. In winter, my brother and I used to dread the capsize drills at the local yacht club where Dad has enrolled us into sailing lessons; I don't know what was worse, the bone-chilling waters, or the itchy woolen undergarments that we were told to wear in order to keep us warm.

The stark Melbourne summers brought stifling heat and humidity, the unforgiving Aussie sun beating down mercilessly on the beaches and brightly colored beachboxes and pale skin of Brighton, while the dark waters of Port Phillip stung with icy contrast.

I have only just left home, only to arrive home again. It's a warm and fuzzy feeling, as if I am existing in two places at the same time.

Question of the Day: Is home where the heart is?

MR LIVINGSTON SEAGULL,
A PLEASURE TO MAKE YOUR ACQUAINTANCE!

Malcolm's Magical Gardens

THEME SONGS FOR THE DAY:
1. "Home Among the Gum Trees", by John Williamson
2. "Sounds of Then", by Ganggajang
3. "DILLIGAF", by Kevin Bloody Wilson

ENTERING THE MAGICAL GARDENS

It's often the simple things in life that yield us the most satisfaction... I've spent the first weeks in Melbourne enjoying the crispy autumn air, sleeping in and relaxing in the magical garden that Mum & Dad have created over the last ten years. The southern sun has been breaking through the clouds at around 9 o'clock each morning, and I have been sneaking outside to enjoy the morning sunshine with a hot cup of tea, crumpets and toast, and a great book [currently "Shapes on the Wind", an autobiography by Kiwi explorer / adventurer David Lewis who, among other feats, sailed on the Hokulea and helped prove that early Polynesians were capable of navigating, and populating the Pacific].

Melbourne's weather, however, has been typically Melbourne.... beautiful one day, bloody hopeless the next...turning cold and blustery just in time to welcome my brother home to celebrate his 30th birthday.

"Sustainability" seems to be so much more ingrained into the psyche of your average Melbournian: Mum explains to me one morning as we search for a good latte how the city's dams are only at 27% capacity, putting everyone on water restrictions as a result. This seems to be common knowledge, with the data being talked about on the nightly news and in the daily newspapers. There is even a massive billboard outside a major train station with a digital update of Melbourne's water catchment system status - an awareness born out out of necessity.

PHOTO FROM FROM ARTICLE:
"DEATH TOLL RISES FROM BUSHFIRES"
BY MEX COOPER, LARISSA HAM FEB 8, 2009
THEAGE.COM.AU

Only 1 month ago, Melbourne was experiencing unseasonably warm days, in the 40s [100+ F] and with drought-like conditions...one of the factors contributing to the massive bushfires that the state suffered just a little while ago. Thousands of acres of farmland and bushland have been burnt to a crisp, entire townships were leveled and many lives were lost. The cleanup and recovery efforts will likely continue for years.

The recent cold rains, therefore, while not conducive to family reunion barbequeues, have been a welcome relief to locals. It is interesting to experience how this level of awareness seems to strengthen the bonds of community, a sense of "we're all in the same boat"; our survival depends upon each other.

There has been a behavioral shift, which has affected large-scale social change... on a level that makes it unacceptable for one to be a "Wally with water"; ie wasting water. To be seen by your neighbors watering your lawn on a restricted day would be akin to casting yourself as a social leper - it is a great working example of the Pooper Scooper Effect can be used to affect positive change in our community.

In Mum & Dad's neighborhood, watering of lawns is only allowed on Tuesdays and Saturdays. So, in order to keep the lawns green and the garden veggies growing, they have installed a rainwater catchment: two 500-gallon drums in the back garden catch rainwater from the shed roof, while two massive garbage bins collect water redirected from the house's roof in the front yard.

Mum tells me that people had taken to posting signs in their yards declaring: "RAINWATER SYSTEM IN EFFECT" so that suspicious neighbors envious of green grass growing next to their brown yards wouldn't report them to the City Council.

There is also a very high-tech greywater system that has been installed: more garbage bins collecting greywater from the laundry room. After each shower, we are to carry out the bucket which lives in the bathtub to collect even more greywater; these soft, soapy waters are used to wash the cars, water the lawns, and srub down the patio to keep it clear of all the lovely bird blessings which accumulate.

Curbside recycling, which was instituted well before I left Melbourne for Hawaii, is a given. We were wheeling city-issue bins filled with empty beer and wine bottles the mornings after our infamous Lynch BBQs as eighteen-year olds celebrating our newfound ability to drink alcohol legally - over 12 years ago!

Back in the garden, an olive tree is fruiting in the front yard, hibiscus and plimerias are blooming next to the herb and veggie garden, which features [of course] parsely, sage, rosemary and thyme... well ok there's no sage but it rolls off the tongue so much more nicely when you say it that way... the spinach, kale, and romaine lettuce, are doing well, as are the oranges, tomatoes [pro-nounced toe-mah-toes in Oz], and peppers in the backyard.

There are even a couple of possums living in the tarps which form the roof of the tent in our backyard BBQ area! On my first day back, Dad shows me a conspicuous bulge in the roofline underneath the tent and tells me to push up on it. The lump is warm, and squirms grudgingly when I lift gently to feel its weight:

THE POSSUMS IN OUR BACKYARD;
UNIMPRESSED WITH THE PAPARAZZI...

Aussies are obsessed about their yards and gardening - local celebrity Don Burke made his name with the iconic TV show Burke's Backyard [now a popular magazine and radio show, with weekly re-runs], which ran from 1987 - 2004, was one of the most beloved shows on Aussie television, and inspired many spin-offs [and take-offs (watch both videos!)].

STANDARD AUSSIE YARD EQUIPMENT (FROM L TO R):
1) COMPOST BIN. 2) BBQ. 3) RECYCLE BIN

How about "grow food...and lawns" instead of "grow food, not lawns"?

"Great Social Transformations - the end of slavery, the women's and civil rights movements... the birth of environmentalism - all began with public awareness and engagement" - Jeffery Sachs, author of "The End of Poverty"-

Perhaps sustainable living practices like planting our own gardens would be more readily and widely accepted if it were considered by the mainstream public to be less "extreme".

Now don't get me wrong, I agree that extreme and drastic action is necessary in order to effectively address climate change. Al Gore's Nobel-prize winning "Inconvenient Truth" was perhaps one of the greatest recent catalysts to raise massive awareness of the environmental crisis; there is little doubt that we are aware that change needs to occur...

However, awareness ≠ action. So many of us, myself included, are often left wondering "What can I do? What difference will one person make?" It can be so overwhelming...

Climate change is something that this community is experiencing first-hand - Melbourne's water catchment system is running well below capacity, the experience of the hottest summer on record is still raw, with the Black Saturday bushfires the worst in recorded history,

I wonder what other lessons we, living on our tiny island paradise, can learn from our continental-island neighbors across the Pacific? Do we need to experience our own version of Black Saturday before we can achieve widespread acceptance of such drastic - and simple - measures as watering our lawns and gardens only two days per week?

I hope not.

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farewell Honolulu, hello Melbourne!

THEME SONGS FOR THE DAY:

1. Honolulu City Lights - by Keola Beamer. This is a pretty random video, but it was the only recording of the song I could find on YouTube!
2. The Horses - by Aussie singer Daryl Braithwaite, from the album "Rise"
3. Back in Black - by rock legends AC/DC, from the album "Back in Black"

SUNSET ON MY LAST EVENING IN HONOLULU;
THE WAIKIKI SKYLINE BIDS ME FAREWELL

The weeks and days counting down to my departure from Honolulu are a blur of laughs, first-time experiences, and happy good-byes. It is surreal how quickly my departure day was upon me, as I boarded the plane it felt like I was watching a movie of myself, you know the one with Jim Carrey where he runs down the jetway yelling, "It's OK, I'm a LIMO DRIVER!!!"

Funny how when you are about to leave a place, all of a sudden you meet the coolest people and start to do all the funnest things you didn't do but wanted to the whole time you were there: paddling on a stand-up board and then a one-man outrigger canoe off Kaimana Beach were firsts on the 3rd-to-last day in the islands [i'm hooked!]. And, I've done more rockclimbing, hiking, camping, motorcycling, volunteering, and just hanging out with loved ones in the last 2 months than I have in the last 12 years of living in Honolulu.

CLOCKWISE, FROM TOP LEFT:
1) SQUALL OFF LAIE POINT
2) BOGGART'S "KRAKATOA STEAMER" WITH POOTIE
3) CAMPING AT "LUANA"
4) GETTING GROCERIES AT KAENA POINT

Since I pulled an all-nighter to pack 12 years worth of accumulated "stuff" into two oversized suitcases, I slept through the 9-hour flight to Sydney and awoke in a new hemispehere, a new country... the 60-minute connecting flight to Melbourne was over by the time we finished the tiny butter chicken dinner with peas swimming in a tasty curry-like sauce over rice that they served up; QANTAS always did have decent airline food...

...but this was nothing compared to the delicious meal Mum, Dad, Sis and I enjoyed at the Pacific Seafood House, a new contemporary asian restaurant in its new location at the edge of Melbourne's Chinatown. This neighborhood smells just like Honolulu's Chinatown: a mix of five-spice, char-siu, and steamed dumplings on the main streets, with the faint underlying stench of hum-ha, stale beer and urine wafting through the air from the back alleys. Chinatowns smell the same all over world.

We get home late, and as I walk into the house that my family has lived in for the last 12 years, it feels like I am home. Mum says, "I'm glad you're here," before turning in for the night, and I am fast asleep in the back room soon after.

I wake up to an empty house as everyone has left early to get to work, and Yuki the cat greets me with a loud meow before settling into a chair to wait for a beam of sunlight through the windows she can bask in. She doesn't have to wait long, as I am making my breakfast of crumpets with honey and tea, the autumn sun appears and streams through the windows to both of our delight.

The crisp Melbourne autumn morning is too inviting to stay inside the house, so I take my breakfast and the old naval war novel I am reading [thank you, Hawaii Yacht Club book exchange] and find a warm sunspot in the garden to sit and read in. Mum interrupts [it's "Mum" when I am in Australia, "Mom" when I am in Hawaii] 1 chapter before the thrilling finale of the book - she only has a half day at work and has come home to take me out for a Melbourne latte and lunch.

We go to Batch Espresso in Balaclava, a trendy cafe three stops up on the train line. Young families, artistic types, dapper executives, and orthodox jews in black suits, hats and sporting beards and sideburns bustle about the street here, which is lined with cafes, restaurants, and specialty shops. This kind of vibrant street culture is one of the things I miss most about this place, and is something that Honolulu could certainly learn from. No newbie police officers pouncing on their prey to hand out jaywalking tickets here!

The cafe's menus are cleverly presented in old refurbished hardback novels, with notches in the pages cut out to the places where the menus are hidden - reduce / reuse / recycle at its best in the artistic simplicity of the idea. I order the avocado-feta mash on ciabbata bread [toasted], with a side of bacon [thick, satisfying rashers that are far more decadent than the thin, crispy, burnt stuff Americans are so used to], while Mum goes for the fish special, a pan fried fillet of "roughy" served on a bed of pilaf lentilis with a glass of rose.

I order myself a latte, and soak in the whole scene. There are two ladies seated right next to us, bistro-style so that our elbows are rubbing, talking animatedly about their clients' latest purchases in her boutique, while an artsy lesbian couple sip lazily at their lattes on the sidewalk tables, scratching their dog's belly with their feet. When my drink comes I grin broadly and breathe in the java; there is nothing quite like a Melbourne latte.

It is difficult to describe why a Melbourne latte is so special; perhaps it is the hormone-free milk that is used in every other country in the world except for the united States, or maybe it is simply the sheer volume of espresso that Melbournites consume, forcing barristas everywhere to be on their toes because their discerning audience demands it.

A good Melbourne latte is velvety smooth and doesn't have the bitter bite that many Kona blends do. You could drink three or four of them at one siting and still want more. Think of the creamiest, most expensive, espresso ice cream you've ever had....and imagine that coming out of the espresso machine steamer into your steaming mug...and that is close to what a Melbourne latte is like. Glazers' in Honolulu comes close, but Melbourne still has my vote when it comes to "Best Latte in the World"...

...it is good to be back in my new old home.

THE AUTUMN MELBOURNE SKY...
NOT A CLOUD TO BE SEEN IN ANY DIRECTION...

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