Bubuchan's first nightmare

After arriving home last night at 10:30, I was about to go fo a shower and go to bed when Bubuchan came downstairs to talk to me. She was quiet and I ask what the matter was, but she didn't tell me. The lights to the house was off apart from downstairs and her sisters and mum had gone to bed. Then she started to cry. I took her out to the lounge and comfort her.
As I massage her back with the tip of my fingers, I asked her, "What's the matter?"
She continued crying.
I asked her, "Did you have a bad day at school?" because I knew she hated her teacher. She' in grade one and had already wagged school far too much.
She said,"no."
I asked her if her sisters or mum did something to her, but she said, "no."
They were all asleep.
I asked her if she was sick and touched her forehead to see if she had a fever.
but she said "no."
She said that she had a bad dream but she doens't know why.
I told her that sometimes if something bad happens during the day or if she was sick she would get a bad dream.
I asked her to tell me about her dream but she couldn't remember.
I told her that everyone gets bad dreams. Her sisters used to wake up crying at night from bad dreams. But sometimes they laughed in their sleep too.

When we saw her dad drive into the driveway, I told her to talk to him about it if she wants to, but she went to bed.

Marcia and her Ice-cream

Ever since I started spending time with Marcia, my life had changed. We never ring each other and hardly contacted each other by any other means, but everytime we met at the cliff we ended up doing things together after climbing. She may have planned to do something but she always invited me along. I love the spontaneity of it. These things are usually stuffs that although I have lived in this city all my life I would never do on my own or with anyone else. Last weekend, we went to see "Pride and Prejudice," yesterday I forewent shorinji kempo training to go to the beach with her at Surfer's Paradise. We sunbaked on the beach and talked a lot. Before we went home, we went on a quest to find Marcia's favourite ice-cream on the Gold Coast. After having walked for awhile, she gave up and settled on a compromise ice-cream. It made a $3.00 hole in her wallet, but the ice-cream only filled up a $1.50 hole in her stomach.
On the train back we talked some more, but the ice-cream still dominated her mind, so I promised to buy her one when we get back to Brisbane. It had to be the one she liked: the "Gelita Italia Lemon sorbert cone." We got off at Southbank and proceeded to walk to West End where she had bought the ice-cream last time. Eventually we found it. And she was happy.

Spending time with Marcia requires a lot of walking. But I am happy with that.

マシャ and me in the rain

The rain came before Marcia completed her laps at the crag. So we sat at the BBQ shelter and talked till almost 10:00 p.m. as we watched the lightning danced across the sky. We talked about our past that made up who we are and and how we came to be here. But mostly, it was she who talked. She said that she doesn't normally talked much but she is comfortable to talk with me because I understand her. At one time she said something like "When I get home I get laid." in her Brazilian accent. I questioned her what she meant by that because getting laid means having sex. she said, "get late."
I said, "be late. not get laid." and we laughed it off.

When we decided to leave, I gave her my raincoat; changed my t-shirt to the tank top so that I have something dry to wear later on and we walked to the station. The rain was heavy and I felt cold as I tensed up. The cold became bearable as I relaxed and then it went away. I felt tired as if there was warm water running inside through my body. I stretched my arms out and looked up to see heavy drops of rain beating down at my face.

She looked like an elf from the "Lord of the Rings" with my raincoat on.

When we reached the station, she must have thought that I was going to accompany her and waited till her train arrived because she said that I should go on. As I was soaked, I said "Of course, if I was in love with you then this would be the bullshit thing to do. I am not in love with you." In truth, I never ever wanted to fall in love with anyone again because the extremities of that feeling and having been rejected is like going through manic depression.

マシャ and me down at the station waiting for her train

"Have you ever been in love?" I asked Marcia.
"Yeah"
"I have, I hated it"
"You don't have any control," she said as I was about to say it.
"Yeah, but you have the power to do anything and everything."
"But they are bullshit things, all bullshit things."
She was right.

マシャ and me at the crag

I don't know if it is part of my condition but sometimes when I think about someone, I tend to meet them later. It is as if by thinking about them, I could sense their presence and sometimes if that sense is strong I would wait for them to appear at a certain location. It wasn't a conscious waiting but a waiting where I would do something out of character or out of habit and that person would appear.

I don't normally go climbing on a Thursday afternoon, but for some reason I did. However when I got to the cliff, the three climbs that I could do with my current level of fitness were taken. Having taken all my gear to the cliff, I decided not to climb. It was then that I thought of Marcia and I waited on the mound and enjoy the sunshine. It had been awhile since I've been outdoors or the crag even.

It was later that Marcia appeared. She traversed the first part of the wall six times without falling off. While I couldn't even do half a lap. I was a bit disappointed with myself for letting myself slide so far down as I watched how strong she climbed.

After she finished, she invited me to accompany her to have dinner with her friend. It turned out that I have met her friend previously.

It was during the walk to and from her friend's place that we talked about our lives. It was then that I found out how fucked-up we were, but she already knew that because I've already told her about my situations a long time ago. Only that during that time I thought that she was pretending to be polite and understanding like everyone else. But now, I realised from the comments she made about life and people in general that we shared the same experience. The reasons that we were both alone were the same. It was as if we were people who did not know how to be people and like lone wolves we yearned for the solitude and the freedom but the vestige of our humanity leaves us also craving for the company of others. I always wanted to know why she'd left Brazil to come here with nothing. She'd said that at least here she was a foreigner but at home she'd felt like a foreigner. Exactly how I felt about living in Australia.

In the end, I sat at the train station with her until after 11:00 p.m. talking about our own shit, but the shit was profound, tinged with sadness and garnished with interjections of humour. During our talk, she said that she wanted to go to Frog buttress with me because I have a car. I had convinced her a moment ago not to buy one. I said, "We'll go in winter."
She said, "you'll be fit by then."

As I left, I told her that I enjoyed her company simply because I have found someone who understands me.

It was perhaps because of the words, "you'll be fit by then" being repeated in my head that I have been climbing for the last two days in a row; that I could fight of the fatigue and weariness in the morning to go to the cliffs and to not give in to the annoyance of my injured big toe to keep on making progress to my climbing.

I wanted to tell her how much she had affected me since that night and I will - because who would know when I will lose myself and forget who I am in the darker labyrinths of my mind again. And when I do who would know when I would come out of it again.

And I wanted to write this down because I don't want this to be washed away with the rest of my memories.

Wynnum

I took the Cleveland train to Wynnum Central. As I was early for the appointment with the real estate agent, I walked around the area for an hour. In my wanderings, I saw the direction where the bay sat from the top of a hill. From Bay Terrace I turned into Edith Street where there lied some nice houses and blocks of units. The sidewalks were lined with grevillias and banksias. They were just starting to flower. Some of the flowers had fallen, colouring at the base of the trees with a red and yellow silky layer over the hardness of the concrete footpath. The grevillia flowers were crimson. The younger trees only had buds on them and they looked like clusters of blood bubbles. The more matured flowers had a multitude of thick stamen protruding like tentacles from the centre. They glistened with the fresh colours of spring and they invite me to touch their soft lethery skin.

I crossed the road from the Pelican Cafe onto the park. There was much water in the wading pool to my right. It was low tide. I walked pass the wading pool and onto the concrete jetty. The entrance of the jetty was guarded by three big post leaning against each other. These posts were from the the original wooden jetty. I walked to the end of the jetty. The breeze was strong and it howled in my ears. I stood there watching the rocks clustered with small oysters below the high tide mark. The buildings, the boats and the islands in the distance were like phantoms in the mists. The cold wind howled and blew away the fatigue from my face as I stood there feeling the freshness of the ocean and I did not care of what was to come.

The real estate agent showed me all the structural problems of the house. One side of the brick wall was buckled and there were gaps in the brickwork caused by the slipping of the foundation. It would cost me a lot to repair and he said that I would only get price of the land if I sell it. If I had the money I would have demolished it and build on it because the land was on top of the hill and I could see the bay from where it sat. The house looked like how I felt in these past years - dilapidated. Without hesitation, I told him to sell it.