All is Bared

What an awesome experience. I went to Blarney in the night, driving out the back way. Encountered not a soul on the road, not sure at all how many would be ahead in the Blarney Castle grounds. Pitch black, wondering about speed on a dark night, yellow street lights, even the hedges by the side of the road were still green tho.

Then, to the entrance. Suddenly it was like a world music festival, with people from ALL walks of life, warmly dressed, making their way in. People in pairs, in groups of friends - Cork, where nothing is a secret. All made our way down to a huge lit space, floodlit by sportsfield lights, sitting on our plastic bags, settling in for a long wait. And it was LONG.

What got to me was the cigarette smoke, my god they were all puffing away a lot. I had to go to the edge of the space we were all waiting in to clear the nausea. A group of women singing, a man stripping off to cheers WAY too early (just had to get his kit off), people with thermos flasks, ipods, warm beanies. I didn't speak much.

Some words from the crew, Spencer Tunick himself, then more waiting looking to the sky to lighten. It was only at about 5.30 that we all got our kit off. Which was easy, it was. Stuff everything into the bag, and walk out.

Walking out between the trees in a luminous crowd of white bodies was very moving: like the first humans walking out from the trees, primeval experience, even if totally removed from any historical accuracy ever!. Everyone still warm from clothes, shoulders sheltering bodies, curling over as they could. Eye contact.

Soon after, cold wet feet. Soon after, shouting and moving the mass, the putty we had become, into the right shape for the shoot, as determined from a crane high over our heads. Soon after, surreptitious glances at tattoos, shapes, colours of skin. We are all beautiful naked, even when cold in the grey light of dawn. Never more so.

More time passing and we are getting colder. During the lying-down shoot/red and white roses held aloft, I heard chattering teeth from a young guy near my head somewhere. The sun was nearly golden on the birch leaves nearby now, white light fading out the early grey.

It has seldom been harder to get my socks on, as at about 7am! The women only then made their way to a spot closer to the castle, for another stripping down. There was much hooting from both sides as the men watched from lower down the hill, like a scene from Braveheart now, cheering hooting, almost bawdy, but in such a fine humour in the early morning! Other folks are probably stirring and slurping their first cups of tea now, we're out here in full swing. Yep. As it were.

Dressed again, nothing but our big smiles to separate us from the rest of Cork anymore.

For me, an awesome, enormous feeling of wholeness in my body. Being one shape, inhabiting one vessel, not a collection of lumps too big and limbs too untoned.. Wonderful, a liberation.

Homeward Bound

Well, that changes everything. A week ago, we decided to fly home on our original plan a, ie the end of June, with 2 weeks USA fly-over. After paying for the tickets Friday, it then took the weekend to decide really - and shed the tears. Once I've cried, the decision is made. Really made. Sealed in water.

In a week, it's changed my view of Europe, my needs of the place while we're still here, and my connectedness to it. Immediately, I'm less connected, less immersed, because I know we're stepping out. We're separate again. I'm on the way to becoming that stranger again.

And I got the next in our seemingly endless line of colds, one of those ones with a throat so raw I could hardly speak. Or move off the couch in the evenings while LMM worked the night shift. More on that later.

What I observe is that the variety, availability of SO much here deeply appeals to me. The thought of the streets in Australia filled me with glumness - so few cars to choose from. I've come to accept, enjoy the BIG variety of everything here - jams, cars, newspapers, destinations for our week-out trips. And, after being frugal because we're living here (and because I'm that way inclined in day-to-day life), I feel a shift to just HAVE whatever we can get in the remaining 2 months.

And thoughts turn to packing, each item I hold in my hands becomes a question: am I taking you back, do I still need you now, or are you for the bin immediately? Last night, this set of thoughts filled a bin: the Shanghai fake Converse, some out of date cosmetics and lots of paper, process-drawing from the boys.

Wayfaring Stranger - as in...

..travelling through this world alone...That bright bright land, to which I go...I know dark clouds will gather round me, and I know my way be rough and steep... The beautiful fields lie just before me.

...the lyrics of Natalie Merchant's ballad stops me in my tracks, still and always.

I have companions along my way yes of course, close ones, treasures. And yet, there's an element of solitude in every life. Making my ways around the globe, through many lives, often a stranger. In the French way, like foreigner, not the English way like strange/weird/unknown. I've been one of those all my life: since I said eggs-eier at the age of two in England, learning my first English words.

Then to Malaysia, thankfully learning English there from another fair-headed girl who lived across the road, and in a Montessori pre-school. On to Australia, where at 7, I was told I must know about Hitler 'because you're German'! More strangeness. A childhood of wayfaring with my family, travels overseas to relatives and new shores across Asia and the Pacific, unlike many Canberra children at the time.

Then Sydney, making my way into adult life. Travelling again, now more to Asia between work and studies. Never making the gap year trip, never taking a big flying leap into the true unknown, always aware of needing to provide for myself, make something of myself.

Often a stranger, speaking German in Europe to avoid obnoxious Australians, French in Thailand to duck under the radar of the Germans or Australians there. Speaking all three with a cousin on a road trip through Vietnam, just to entertain ourselves and others. Because we could.

Then more ways, across Australia, with a new husband, then two surprising boys - treasures, perfect, so different though we made them both. Travels as the wife of a medical student, student life for him, motherhood and full time work for me. And a big decision to take it all to Newcastle, to settle, be responsible to our family. Another new start, a house, a garden, and always this restless stranger-self. Always from here/not from here.

And always the music, always songs, always searching out new tunes for the soundtrack of my life. Afro Celt Sound System, Buddha Bar, Natalie Merchant, Michael Franti. Again now, in Ireland, searching for new sounds. Kila. Michael McGoldrick. O'Death.