state i'm in: rainy day reading.
tune: zero 7 & josé gonzález 'crosses'.
i don't think i'm a country person, by any stretch of the imagination, but i have really been missing the solitude of rural life lately. and missing the general mood of woorabinda. i miss the relaxing days, the 20 second walk to work in the morning, fooling around for half the day with the health workers, and being intimately in touch with some very transforming social issues that grab a community by the shirt and shake it back to its cowering in the corner. i miss the yarns the most.
i've been back in brisbane for some time now, about 6 weeks, and it's becoming painfully obvious how little solitute a set of headphones really affords. it's an escape nonetheless, to pop on some blondie or blue six and lose yourself in the patterns on the plastic mouldings of the train interior. but it's not the sort of cathartic escape possible when your town lies hours from civilisation. there is no paddock or airstrip you can wander off into, where you can scream without being heard by anything but the kangaroos and the apostlebirds.
moreover, the extreme solitude i experienced, some of it self-imposed, has left me struggling to deal with people at such close quarters. it's not that i don't want them near, but i just find myself exuding an emotional coldness which is not so characteristic. the depth of these feelings and the revelations to be found within them is a little troubling.
anyway, here's some pics from my peripatetic days...
the old duaringa butcher... not sure if the meat's so fresh
rural hazard
view from horseshoe lookout, blackdown tableland nat'l park
in a moist part of the national park
view from descent down blackdown tableland
red-winged parrots... before alighting, they were 70km/h streaks of greed, red and blue
my flatmate... mostly just kept to himself
good camouflage
big sky country... beside the airstrip
my room, and that shitty phone!
one chilly night after a few drinks at dr mary's place. this is the woorabinda health service by night, complete with obligatory grazing horses
have i got the wrong car park?
somewhere between duaringa and nowhere
some of the local kids performing
damian, a good performer, whether at a corroboree or a public meeting
with lizzie and woggie... i felt like i connected with lizzie the most, over lots of cuppas out the back, yarning about all sorts of local and not-so-local issues; while a tad tangential at times, she always had something to say worth listening to
with yasmin and uncle bill, who's radio station i frequented
hard working woorie
crazy psychologist loretta
renee with her young one, maurie and lizzie
uncle charlie, shirley, and leeann the gatekeeper of the health service... uncle charlie was a hoot
aunty pam and aunty mary... "it's friday... where's my beeeeer?"
margaret (RN), bodgy and maurie
the health service resident's adopted dog, mia. such a sweet little thing
farewell woorie...
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images: mine
images: mine
