Contained Life
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On the third day without showers, locals reminded me that desert people lived without them for longer periods. Water was kept for drinking.
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Manhattan Windows
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Watching the lights of a thousand cars, I’m musing about the dreams of the people on this island.
Read MoreFlying to work
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We watch the birds sheltering, clustered on one side of the tree as a dust-storm blows in. It’s the Australian interior in January in the era of Climate Change—way too hot.
Read MoreThe Joshua Tree
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We build our selves on an emotional skeleton of passed and dead drama, trauma, healing and learning, if we’re fortunate.
Read MoreThe Rain, the Salt and the Serpent
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‘And how did the rulers make that light appear? Every year it came to the temple for seven hundred years. What if it was cloudy, like it is today?’
Read MoreSwimming in a Cenote
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Moving into the adjoining cavern I find the brilliant aqua spot. Light is pouring around me through the bright water.
Read MoreClaudia & the Sharks Pt 2
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For a moment I thought, ‘My heart’s gonna stop.’ It was a single shark, a lone swimmer.
Read MoreClaudia and the Sharks
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'I’ve never been afraid of sharks. They are among the most elegant swimmers in the ocean.
There are some exceptions. The Great White has got a face that only a mother could love.'
Oh Nutbush
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We’d pull up in the middle of the road to talk to other people driving their cars around, in case something happened.
Read MoreThe Lost Pearl
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Broome was the first place I saw hot pink frangipanis – their perfume swelling up in the waves of midday heat
Read MoreFear and Healing by the Roadside
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"The wild carrot has a leaf which is delicate and curved. We call it Aphrodite’s eyebrow. You have to be very careful though, because the other plant that looks like these is hemlock.”
Read MoreTouristic Travail
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She was psychologically worn down, too -- expected to drink with guests, entertain them and be entertained by them. The bar staff helped by hiding the alcoholic drinks clients bought for her.
Read MoreItjanu Summer
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Massive storm clouds had been gathering and the long-distance fragrances of hundreds of different desert flowers curled itself around petrichor – the perfume of rain on dusty rock.
Read MoreRented Boxes by the Bay
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It’s a four-and-a-half star hotel, they say. Our room has a spa bath with 2 of the 4 jets working and it is only as loud as a lawnmower. The working jets are oddly placed. My ankles and knees are very relaxed.
Read MoreElevated by Concrete Sails
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The Opera House is built on Bennelong Point, named for the multilingual Dharug man who became a cultural educator for the founding Governor of the New South Wales colony. Intelligent and funny, Bennelong traveled to England -- got stuck there for years. Perhaps he learned more than he wanted about the subjugation of his people
Read MoreChai, cappucino and rosehip
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In the darkness before sunrise, I blink as the kitchen lights come on. Pulling out a small white paper bag from the tea box, I see its pencilled name, ‘Hibiscus flowers’. I bought these more than a year ago, and forgot I had them. Delighted, I take a generous pinch of the blackish dried spikes, and throw them in the teapot.
Read MoreCatching the Stars in Maui
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At first, the stony path was unremarkable except for a closer look at some of the bright flowers. But cresting a rise at the end of the path revealed an immense and strange space — a panorama of desert dunes and volcanic cones.
Read MoreThe Little One Who Left
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The driver asked if we could help. We got out feeling helpless. We had to get closer to see the car, a small crumpled vehicle lying upside down about fifty metres into the stony roadside brush.
Read MoreThe Whispering Wind
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There was a spiral staircase up the clock tower where I would meet my beau for kisses at lunchtime. I put a satirical poster of Ronald Reagan (the demented Hollywood actor who threatened to launch the nuclear war) on the wall next to my office desk and felt quite at home.
Read MoreA Mobile Life
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When it did ring, I would sit bolt upright in bed, wide awake at the tinny burble of the Nokia tune. The ringtone of my phone carved a track in my brain, an ear worm that never went away.
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