The hunt.

The reek of tree camp still wafts from brown arms and dirty tights and a haggard face. Aunty Marj picked me up today in Dryden, after a short/long stint in the bush. (I don't know how to write anymore). I stood in the gravel driveway, wishing it all to be over, wishing it all to continue on, looking like hell, smelling like ass, and left wanting. A clipped good bye to several and a long, hard hug from a very dear and new friend Nikki, I picked up my shit with hard-earned ease and left and never looked back. Good bye strange life, adios wooden tables and cinders in the giant firepit, au revoir regular pee spot (everywhere and anywhere), peace short buses (you were very good to me), later cook shack and wash stands, bye bye puddles as deep and wide as the open sea. This time away has been good for me, beyond measure, beyond words, beyond any form of articulation.

I am haggard and tired, I hardly know how to write. For the past two weeks I have been collecting words and faces, stockpiling things that made me laugh to the point of near death on many early morning bus rides to the Block and then back home again. I will miss the wind, I will miss the grey days, I will miss the feeling of honest labor, I will miss the meeting of eyes in mirrors in the morning, I will miss black coffee, I will miss meals shared around real tables, I will miss drawing with Mel, I will miss prepping vegetables on days off, I will miss long drives in the night, I will miss listening to musical best friends (Cat Power is my homegirl) on the bus and dancing like a wild demon, unabashed, always. I will miss it, and that is that.

I will even miss screaming unmentionable Savage Garden songs at the top of my lungs at 5:47 in the morning.

To be home is so strange. I am floating in disbelief.

As I sit curled in normal clothes in my mum's office, listening to the hum of the washing machine (colors, whites in the dryer) and the sounds of summer evenings in the country, thinking back to getting dressed this morning under a tarp in the pouring rain, naked as a jay bird in only my rubber boots is unreal. I am home now, clean clothed, well fed, mothered, fathered, grandmothered, grandfathered, pork tenderloined, midddle parted and wild eyed. I am wild eyed, there is no other way to describe it. I have one trillion things to write down, one million things to draw, one billion regrets for being sans camera, I long for a quiet retreat in the bush oddly enough. But damn, it feels good to be back treading on the familiar hardwood floors of my childhood haunt. For obvious and noteable reason, my head is all the fuck over the map but I feel good, clear and happy. I am home. I am me again. I found her out there and roped in old Meg. I am back.

To whomever lays eyes on this, I am coming to hunt you down. I need the red booth, I need tiger tiger icecream with my Frin, I need to pour over ridiculous fashion magazines with my Babs, I need to curl up under handmade blankets with Rags, I need to meet baby Rollin, I need Sunday breakfast with Ruthless, I need clever banter with Andrew, I need to hold my Maiya Papaya until my knees give out, I need espresso like there is no tomorrow and I need to rip on my goddamned Jessica Alba. I took the Surly out for a spin as soon as supper was consumed and barely digested and we rode and we rode and we rode. I can't WAIT to ride in rushhour.

With nine crossed fingers (and one mysteriously semi-broken one), I am praying for clever musings to come. I have to write, I need to write, I will write.

I'm commmmmmmmmmmmmmmming.

I miss. I have missed. I am missing.
All, everyone, all the time missing.

Shit.

I will be in the red booth in t-minus, as soon as I get everything down on paper. You know the drill. I smell a writing retreat. Oh, I also need to dance. Hard. And I really, really need Girl Club.