Over Airwaves

I don’t really care for the beach, although it’s the one bit of nature people seem to reliably adore, people spending thousands of dollars to spend time at secluded beaches, on them the whole time, this imminent perception of paradise being simply nirvana by the ocean, green fields, cliffs and mountains, running rivers, christ even harbours aren’t what people see when they imagine it, just beaches.

I’m staying at a beach side apartment/resort at the moment, the apartment over looks the beach and ocean, I don’t know, it’s normally me behesting those around me to show some interest in nature but I just don’t feel anything when I look at the ocean. It’s coming up to the anniversary of Simon’s death, a year is a long time, it will also be a year since Alle and I broke up. It’s weird not having her with me on holiday, you sort of get used to the idea of certain things being there, for 6 years I rarely went on holiday without her, I was on the balcony today and I saw a girl who was headed to the beach that had the same walk as Alle, I wanted to go over to her but then I reminded myself it wasn’t her, just some stranger who had a similar way of walking… Funny the things that stay with you, all these unconscious bits of familiarity.

Holiday’s are so common for me, lord I go on so many, always someone dragging me along, I don’t go on holidays for myself, except to Orange I suppose but they’re more trips, I’m very happy where I am, my idea of a holiday is just what I do normally only with a bit more time to do it in. Out of everyone I know I appreciate going on holiday the least but I probably do the most travelling. I know it sounds like I’m complaining about the weight of the diamonds in my shoes but I’m more commenting than criticising… mostly…

The only time I ever go to a beach of my own volition, on my own, it isn’t even quite that. Simon in his last years used to walk down to the rock heads over by Tamarama, which is a small beach next to Bondi, he’d go in the middle of the night when he couldn’t sleep for all his thoughts and sit there on the rocks watching the ocean, waiting for the view to calm him. So I’ll go there sometimes, I know the exact location, but I’m not doing it for the beach, it’s sort of my way of visiting him, I’m usually up at odd hours anyhow and I’ll often go for a drive in the middle of the night, it’s a nice place I suppose on it’s own, it certainly was for him anyhow, but mostly I go to talk to him I guess, tell him how things are with everyone.

The mind doesn’t really understand the idea of something not being there anymore, the concept of a permanent loss is contrary to the basic reasoning of the mind, it doesn’t accept it, if something exists it will always exist, in that way, for me at least, in my mind, he’s still here, I mean, of course he is, I go and visit him, I go and talk to him, nothing much has changed in my mind, he just doesn’t talk back anymore… However I do know he’s gone, I know he doesn’t hear me, I know I’m actually sitting alone, but at the time, I don’t think I am, I don’t feel like I am.

I’ve always found that people, memories maybe, seem closer when you’re alone, when it’s just you and them, no audience or masses of people walking by, odd hours and rain are good for that, everyone goes indoors when it’s late or raining, it gives you free run of what’s outside.