4 weeks since the desert donga…
Pinch me, am I dreaming?
Today it has been a month since I turned the wheel of my car to head out of the desert home I lived in for 10 months.
I spent five days camping and driving with a small hatchback packed to the gills. Starlink is one of the best inventions on earth. I would just plug my EV in to the powered campsite pole and plug my Starlink in the other power point. Put up the tent and hey Presto! Internet, a bed — what more could a person want on earth really? Can’t find a knife to cut the cheese? no problem cut open the plastic wrapper with a house key and just break it off with either your teeth or your hands.
I had a swim in one of the caravan park pools with high mineral content and cooked my watch — google AI ‘Gemini’ advised me it probably would still work, if I just dry it on a bed of salt for a few days. Weeks without a step counter — pretty tough for a watch addict! and hello white wrist. Found a caravan park late at night somewhere near Adelaide with an automated reception 24/7 — all touchscreens and credit card taps. No idea really where I was — just too dark to see and my eyes were beginning to close. Woke up in the morning beside the Murray River on super turf lawns with super clean shower blocks with black stylish tiles. Then noticed a sign that said the whole place is Adults Only — wondered if I had run into a swingers party by accident — packed the car too quick to find out.
Got across my third state line, but didn’t see the sign. Realised when I hit a town there and suddenly was crest fallen coz I had intended to get out of the car and kiss the ground on total return. The moment had passed so looked for a bakery pie instead.
I just kept looking at the plants and grasses and trees and clouds and felt like I was having a visual feast. So long since I saw a shop, a streetlight, double lanes, a tall tree, a horse, a cow, a supermarket, a deli fridge, a row of houses on a street, a pharmacy… the list is too long to define. I felt like a woman let out of some sort of groundhog day, red dirt, jail — and wondered why the fuck I waited so long. I let out screams and yelps and soliloquys to no one - but me, my car and the sky — to try to reset me.
I suddenly realised ‘hey, there is no destination point… slow, stop, Where to ? in my beautiful home state ? — I stopped and booked a hotel in the middle somewhere. I took two paid days to try and get a plan in place. I need a home, a job, a everything….
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I spent a week hotel/motel hopping. I was convinced one of them had a spy-hole into the bathroom through a hole in the top of the bathroom wall that seemed to go into the next room. The receptionist was an old Asian woman who seemed dubious and hungry for cash advising I needed to pay $20 per hour extra for entering the room earlier than check in. Her eyes slid from contact. A little porn on the side, yeah maybe. The pool was disgustingly grotty and the windows so dirty that you could get black dirt on your finger by just touching it. I found a small drug deal bag on my bed that blew off a high shelf when I opened the external balcony door. I was desperate — I took it in stride as educational — an expose on tourism.
The other… I had been upgraded to top level, king bed, down pillows, a bed topper that was unequivocably the best bed and sleep of my entire life. All I could do was keep thinking of Queen Latifah in ‘Last Holiday’ and her getting to Hotel Pupp and marvelling at her bed — honestly I was reliving the moment and this was me ‘the queen of sensuous linen’, the one with Cashmere doona — but no, this bed was the best bed of my life — hands down. Every angle of the room and bathroom was a magazine shoot for current style!!! This made the shitty hotel more bearable and less depressing.
I had several issues. I needed a house, and work within a very small financial window before I would be homeless and may as well just shoot myself, or drive the car off a cliff or become a street prostitute or some other crazy thing.
So have laptop, have WiFi — work that and hustle like a maniac.
Within 4 days of arrival I had a home in a rooming house at $315 per week coming in closely to being hustled by some South Americans who intended to rob me.
Within a week or so, I had interviews for multiple companies being settled.
Within 2 weeks I had not only started casual work shifts, but secured multiple companies all at once.
I also advised someone (that I had embarrassingly lustily fell for before I went to the desert) that I had returned, in case anyone advise them or any other news was travelling to them and getting skewed on the way. Done. I was proud of this, because I went to the desert to cool this off and now that it had been through the test; it was proved rock solid.
My latest fling (across the distance of desert) was proving slowly, inch by inch; that while I was keen — there was no reciprocation going on. Day by day, I felt like all the colour and happiness of the union was seeping out a pin prick hole in a cup. I tried to ignore it, but I could see it and kept pretending it wasn't true and distracting myself with tasks of my new beginning and dire need for survival. (Frankly, I was a gymnast pulling off an aerial move jumping out of a plane and that was nearly taking all my elite level vision and tactical prowess — but there was a space when I sat and drank a cup of tea or something when he crossed my mind and I would happily text him something with all the flair of an innocent and naive school girl to no response and I would just kind of shrug it off and think about what next to attack on my list).
Four weeks rolls around today. I canned the guy 4 days ago. He had sent me 2 photos, a video message and about 6 text messages across the month mainly in one stint on one day. I mainly took offence at being advised that the beauty mask with hyaluronic acid (I had applied to my sunburn) looked like he had ‘cum on my face’ according to him. Had we been between the ages of 12 and 20 years old I would have expected this; but at over 50 years of age it was just cheap and nasty and ho level. That was so far below the belt and bar — that I was in shock. He had at least got the present I bought earlier online for several hundred dollars (back when he graced my bed and I thought he was the best thing the desert had offered in 10 months). He seemed steadfast though on the fact that he would not open the present and try the three pieces of clothing on; nor advise whether the guessed size was correct. I assumed this was some sort of savouring or that he simply actually hated them/ me/ or the entire idea. As he was so lacking in simple manners to explain, I had no way of assessing (especially as he would not answer my several attempts to phone him directly). I gave up; my heart was weeping and all the love was becoming curdled rather than dancing. I woke up the other day realising all the love now just was hate — an entirely undignified ungraceful lump of disgust now replaced the sweetness. It felt like he was now the thing I needed to vomit from where he lay in my body.
The good bit is that I have run into many, many people. People, people. People from workplaces and different areas and times in interviews and workplaces and streets. I worked at a motorbike race event, on the backstage with popstars, and in the private marquees at the races within 3 weeks and each night I just gave thanks to God.
Dear God you have saved me. You have protected me and you have shown me over and over Mighty Love better than anything or anyone I have ever met. You took me safely from the desert, back to my home city, on a wing and a prayer literally. You saved me and I am on my knees. Thank you. My life is yours.
It is 4 weeks today and I feel like I have been through a cyclone and that it’s been several years since I left the desert.
To the future. I have started running on the beach every couple of days on a 10,000 step track. My body is getting stronger and is dealing well with the gruelling muscular stress and I have no pain. I am hoping some nice man and I will meet across the Summer as I get my gun license and learn to kite surf. Wish me luck. I will also try to stop spending so much on my shop-a-holic problems (but I have to say this that day 2 in my state I got my Chanel lipstick and perfume so really I don’t need anything else… but I did buy some new lingerie and some furniture for my new room and a table cloth and coasters and a lazy Susan and a huge bath mat and…. yeah two pot plants and small orchid and a dark red daisy and — you know I was just wanting to make the house like more like a house… so I have like cleaned the entire place inside and out — I can’.t help it I have so much time on my hands and I am so excited just about everything really….)
