8 Degrees North

It's the spongy grainy bread and the ubiquity of Crunchie chocolate bars in supermarkets that remind me of Oz. Nothing else seems to. The waters are calm, even on windy days only amounting to soft swells near the shore. There's a slowness to the beach-goers, an absence of surfer curls, and I find myself longing for neon-colored zinc paste. The heroine in my book discovers race and my white guilt flops about uselessly around its edges. I devour books down here, rediscovering muscles in my imagination long since made redundant by the constantly flickering computer screen. It pleases me. 

I idealize Australia, of course, it has called me since long before New York was the superlative dream. So often I fear I will not conquer it in my short life, yet at the back of my spine lies the resolve that I must. A simpleness of conviction. Soothing. 

My energy stores have been replenished. I forget the long, dark winter and the sallowness of my steps. Life begins again, now.

I will live it.