I have seen wattle. It was clearly signed. I could say the echidnas were in the wattle or better, after I ate the pavlova I saw the echidna waddling through the wattle. The man on the ferry said, “Please dispose of your rubbish thoughtfully.” She thoughtfully disposed of her rubbish after eating pavlova then waddled with the echidna in the wattle by the billabong into the dreamtime never to be heard or seen from again. Okay. I’m fooling with you. Here for yes, they say “Hmmm”. Or they say “Yeeaah”. Depending on where you are from one replacing the “e” with “i” to really draw it out. I had an egg and cos sandwich (egg and romaine). A bathing suit is a costume, luggage is a case, dinner is tea, alley is laneway, really chill is really relaxed, and guy is bloke. Good morning just won’t do. I get looked at strangely. It has to be g’day. As one comes up the coast “How are you going?” gets shortened to the colloquial “How ya go?” Dame Edna isn’t kidding. The bus driver calls me darling, the lady in the shop calls me darling. Seeing myself with a different “overculture” is why I travel. Not in one’s own world but not in the other, one can step back and look at things with new moisture and richness, creativity germinates to life, events reveal themselves in new light. Someone who I thought knew me well spoke of the “invisible woman” and said that she “saw” me. I just stared at her. She is the same age as me and I am very much in front of her. Why are we even having this conversation? There is a change, though. I can sit and feel peace and not be marauded by men.
When I was younger I was never left alone to the point where it was often uncomfortable, the attention unwanted, travelling through North Africa and around the Mediterranean (oh Sicily!) fraught with harassment. However I am so visible I am etched - that is visible to myself, which is what it is all about. My own interior landscape is reflected to me as I survey brick house after brick house go by, winding rivers, a surprisingly pastoral geography and the startling image of cows grazing under palm trees, I feel a kind of quiet happiness. It is good to be here.