australieh

[australieh]

jump // blisters and all

Two years and two months ago I left Canada. I left in a faithful jump. I left quickly and with promise of being back soon. I hugged my grandparents goodbye saying, "see you in a year!" I waved to my dad at the airport like I'd see him in 6 months, and I kissed my clothes goodbye thinking I'd be the same size when I returned.

I left Canada unceremoniously and unexpectedly. My home, my family, my friends, my things. I left them behind. I left them tucked in corners and packed in boxes.

When I jumped I did not mean to leave, I just meant to jump. I never looked back until it was too late, until the stairs were so tall I couldn't see the top anymore. Ever afraid of moving backwards, I kept going hoping I'd find a shortcut.

I did not intend to be gone forever, and so my heart has not forgiven me. My heart is holding a grudge and putting up a screaming crying fight against the leaving. It is very like my heart, as passionate and strong willed as it is. It knows what I know as well, which is that I left a big part of it at home. Home. I left her there, in those corners and boxes, expecting to come and pick her back up again in a year. But now, like an abandoned knitting project, those pieces of me have been forgotten about. Those intricately weaved parts that I spent careful hours learning and creating - stashed in a box and beautifully unfinished, next to my records and books and sweaters.

Now I have found new spaces of my heart here, and I won't deny that. Tiny crevices that I've chiseled open even against my own will. I've found kayaking and cooking and beaching and seafood and gardening. But in the same way that buying a new pair of shoes feels exciting and scary, so do these new crevices. I am wary when I go into them, and I do not always find comfort. As I ease into them I tell myself over and over, I bought these shoes for a reason, they fit my lifestyle, I just have to wear them in.

I moved to Australia for a reason. It fits my lifestyle. I just have to wear it in. I will find comfort and I will find support. Blisters and all, I will see this thing through, because turning back is not an option anymore.

If there's one thing I've learned from that big jump it's that there is no planning where you will land. The wind takes you wherever it feels like going, and you don't have any say in it. It picks you up and it's just got you and you either fight it or you go with it. You put a bandaid on your heels and you walk to the train station. You can look back, but you can only go forward.

On you go, with your stubborn heart and your blistered feet.

[australieh]

miserable derelicts

Prompt from HaveHasHad: Hell's Fiction Give me your undercooked, give me your rubbery, give me your falling apart, give me your abominations.  Most of all, give me prose that's fucking raw!  Name of the game is Hell's Fiction but you can submit any old thing – fiction, CNF, poetry, I-don't-know-whats. Just write it like it's about to fumble dinner service and cry in the walk-in fridge.  Max word count 500. Shorties + poems can sub up to 3, totalling 500 words.  Subs are capped at 150.  Can't wait to see who ate. 

Inspired by my time as a server/bartender in the beach town of Busselton, Western Australia - a summer that was salty, sweaty and sweet.

The dream that’d held me in its grip all night slips away as I awake, gasping as if coming up for air. Immediately I feel the remnants of the bottle of grenache I’d sipped like juice the night before, fruity and acidic and lethal. Can feel every crevice of my brain crying out, sucked dry and left deserted.

I fling my blankets off. Reach for my phone, palms slick, and see the time: 1:28pm. Fuck. I slide off the damp sheets, crank the ceiling fan to high. Stand underneath chugging warm water from the nearest half full glass until I can feel my bangs lifting off my slippery forehead.

The ice-cold water on my back is an oasis, jolting me out of my groggy state – though the alertness will only last for the remainder of the shower. The minute I step back out I begin to melt, tugging a comb through the permanent knots in my hair – no time to condition, and no point when the salty ocean water is my only grace after every shift. I am already looking forward to my nightly swim, avoiding the thought of the 8 hours that stand between then and now.

I pull on my work clothes before I am fully dry, water and sweat already mixing at my lower back. My underwear sticks to me like papier mâché, and my thighs rub raw between faded denim shorts. The socks I wore yesterday are still wet, my Vans covering the smell as soon as I squish my feet into them.

I’m fully drenched under my arms again by the time I park my bike behind the brewery, my only saving grace being the black of our t-shirts. The black that signals we are the staff - that we are the ones who sweep up broken glass and scoop leftover aioli out of ramekins. We are the sweaty-necked twenty-somethings who sit on milk crates next to dumpsters eating cold pizza from the mistake table. Our knuckles are cracked, our pores are clogged, and our beer bellies jut out under our aprons. We are miserable derelicts, and we know you all regard us with fear and awe - that you all crave our favour. That a tilt of an eyebrow is enough to get a table of 40-somethings in an uproar. We know our power, and we wield it with grace and visceral intention.

I tie on my apron and wash my hands. I look into my own eyes in the plate sized mirror at the sink. The kitchen bell dings and my nervous system, trained like Pavlov’s dogs, jerks a signal through my veins. The sweat on my arms glistens in the sun coming through the floor length windows. I check the time: 2:04pm. The ocean, 50 metres from our patio, crashes and calls like the spray from the dishy’s rinse nozzle against dirty pans. Seven hours, fifty six minutes to go.

[australieh]

The Art of Lying in Interviews

Lessons From a Desperate Backpacker

 

I have a new job! My fifth one in the last 12 months, the true backpacker experience. I am a Temp Reception/Admin girl at a big fancy engineering company, located in one of the many industrial areas of Perth. It took me a month of applying and about 35 applications on SEEK, Australia’s biggest job forum, but I finally landed an interview. A girl named Georgia called from a recruitment agency and asked if I have my own vehicle, what my working rights are and how I feel about data entry, and then booked me in for Friday at 12pm. It was to be the same day as another interview I’d gotten for a sales job that I didn’t really want, but that I figured I’d give a go just in case. It was desperate times for me after being unemployed for 6 weeks, along with big wedding bills looming. I figured I’ll take what I can get, even if I do despise the idea of schmoozing people over a cold call about solar panels over their lunch break.

 

So, when Friday morning came, I put on the carefully planned outfit I’d laid out for myself the night before: white button up shirt and black dress pants from the op shop, with a Kmart blazer borrowed from a friend. I applied the new makeup I’d bought on a spending spree two days before, not daring to touch the $82 YSL primer I’d impulse bought at the department store. I planned on exchanging it for a pair of office appropriate loafers, since the only shoes I owned were combat boots, skate shoes and beat-up sandals. The primer & its carefully folded receipt joined my air pods, a minty-fresh vitamin D mouth spray and a Velcro curler in the small pocket of my tote bag. Ready for the day.

 

The first interview was for the sales job. A 10am appointment in the city, which I triple checked from the email they sent me. Directions to the office included the words “Stop n’ Grab Convenience” and the ad title was posted as “Immediate Start – No Experience Needed,” so my hopes weren’t exactly high.

When I got off the train at 9:27am, I had enough time to grab a coffee. I spotted some A-frame signs with photos of cappuccinos on a marble staircase, so I followed them into a fancy office building. Inside, I joined a throng of corporate looking people ordering flat whites. I inspected all the women’s shoes while I waited for my coffee, trying not to feel self-conscious about my black vans. I’d chosen them over my fake leather combat boots due to the fact it was forecasted to be 33 degrees that day, but now felt like an imposter in them. Everyone can tell I don’t belong here, I thought.

 

Despite it all, I’d found myself feeling optimistic as I trudged up the sidewalk with my cappuccino. I watched the bright morning light fall between the tall buildings and glint off their windows. 9:30am tends to have that affect, especially in Australia where usually the sun is already intense enough to make you turn on your A/C and squint through your sunglasses. That sort of toxically happy vibe is contagious, even to me in an anxious, pre-interview state. As I turned the corner I thought, I could do this every day. Maybe this job wouldn’t be so bad.

About 5 minutes later, all forms of optimism had turned to incredulity. As the email said to, I looked for the Stop n’ Grab Convenience, which was easy to spot due to the number of people milling around it. They all looked how I felt, which was confused and nervous. All wore some version of sneaker, and were dressed in varying levels of office-appropriate wear. A guy in the corner stood with his cap covering almost his entire face, and a black hoodie tightly stretched over a white dress shirt. A girl nearer the door wore a grey trench coat with her hair in a tight bun, and another wore gym shorts with a hoodie and hightop converse. One guy wore a full suit with dress shoes. It was like walking into a career fair at a university and watching all the panicking graduates-to-be trying to look like adults.

 

I peaked inside to see a white poster with “CLIMASOLAR INTERVIEW WAITING ROOM” written in purple marker, tacked to the wall near a tight staircase. You had to pass by the store counter to get there, the guy behind it looking bored and unphased by the crowd forming near the sign. By 9:55am there are almost 20 people in and around the store, all looking around at each other with equally confused expressions. A guy in a red t-shirt and cargo pants asked me in broken English, “You are here for sales job?” and I nodded, mustering a smile. I realize that everyone who applied got called for an interview, and feel sheepish thinking how carefully I’d picked out my outfit.

 

My first instinct was to leave and try to maintain my dignity, but the bigger part of me wanted to see what kind of trainwreck this was going to be. Plus, I had just taken the train all the way here and spent $5 on a coffee, so, I might as well see it through. At 10am on the dot a guy in golf shorts and a polo shirt, maybe 25 years old, unlocks the door to the staircase and everyone starts filing up the stairs. I hide my smile when I see a ping pong table in the corner. The guy herds us into a small room with a 6-person table and a white board with 25-year-old boy handwriting on it. Everyone crowds along the walls, but I manage to snag a seat in the back corner, texting Conor “I can’t wait to tell you about this” with a popcorn emoji and a laughing face. The guy who let us in sits on a stool next to the white board, tells us his name is James, and starts telling us about the job in a British accent. Highlights are that the day starts at 11am, there are free beers in the fridge (just don’t drink them in the morning) and there is a ping pong table you can use any time you want. First month pay is $500 a week and then after that you can get as much as $1500 a week! Plus, did he mention the free beers?!

 

He then asks us to take turns saying our names and our experience, then again saying our hobbies, and I am suddenly launched back into a junior high classroom. We all fidget with our fingers and say things like “uhm, I like to hang out with my friends.” The ridiculousness of at all hits me and I can’t stop grinning. Then, he brings out a basket of items and tells us to guess what he wants us to do with them. “Yep”, he says, “you guessed it.” We are to pick an item from the basket and sell it to him. Everyone laughs nervously as he exits the room, and I see him sit down at a desk and pull out his phone while everyone grabs something from the basket. I’m next to last and I luck out with a small bottle of Bushman’s bug spray, which reminds me of the time Conor and I went camping with our new inflatable kayak (promptly returned the next day). We’d gotten viciously attacked by march flies the second we stepped out of our Rav4, their massive pincers biting ruthlessly and thick wings as loud as a motorcycle. It was like something out of a horror film. We’d spent an hour taking turns pumping the kayak while the other swatted flies away from the pumper’s ankles, before abandoning the kayak for a swim in the river. A kind lady had gone around the campsite that evening offering all the unprepared dummies (ie. us) Bushman’s bug spray, saving us from an evening of hiding in our tent.

 

Holding the tiny bottle of Busman’s in that crowded board room, images of John Bernthal selling Leonardo DiCaprio a pen in the Wolf of Wall Street run through my mind, and I am unable to keep the bemused smirk off my face. I can see everyone panicking about what to say, but all I can do is silently giggle. At last, James pulls his feet down from his desk and comes back in, asking for a volunteer to go first. I watch as the sneaker-clad 20-somethings take turns pitching crayons, sticky tape and rulers. One guy stands up on his seat, while another girl’s words are barely discernable. When it comes to me I keep it short n sweet: “Don’t be a dummy like me and go into the woods without Bushman’s bug spray- it has SPF, too!” I’m just here for the show. When that’s finished, he asks us again to go around the room with our names and when we can start, and we do so while he marks up the paper we all wrote our names and phone numbers on. He finishes by saying thanks for coming in, and if we don’t hear from him don’t take it personally, he does 2 or 3 of these interviews a day (a day!?!?!). Then he swiftly opens the door to dismiss us, and we file out while two other 25 year old boys dressed in shorts and t-shirts play ping pong. I’m back outside the Stop n’ Grab by 10:20am.

 

Walking back towards the train I immediately call Conor. He answers the phone, “Spill the tea” and we laugh for the next 15 minutes. “That was worth every minute and dollar spent getting here,” I tell him, and I mean it, swiping my Transperth card. I run to catch the train back out of the city, and that experience is over. As I’m finding my seat I am already filing it in my “Backpacker Experiences” box, where it joins things like hitchhiking in Panama and sleeping in 8-bed hostel dorm rooms.

 

The thing about me is that, usually, once I’ve got the interview, I’ve got the job. I interview well because I am an expert at telling people what they want to hear. I make sure to appear bubbly and enthusiastic, confident but not cocky. I smile and shake their hands, and I ask what the work culture is like and what success in this role looks like. But I’ll let you in on a secret. The real key to an interview is not to be shy about how bad you want that job. Some might think that’s a bad look, but people love feeling like they are in control; like they are in the power seat. If you do it right, they’ll be so charmed by your enthusiasm that they’ll look past the fact that you’ve hardly ever been at a job longer than 6 months. You’ll leave them smitten and excited to invite you onto their inevitably mismanaged, dysfunctional team.

 

It was with this confidence and a stomach full of coffee and scrambled eggs that I drove to my next interview that Friday. I’d ditched my vans for my boots during a quick stop at Conor’s parent’s place, where we were crashing until our room in a new sharehouse was available. After the crowd of sneakers at the sales interview I opted to just be a bit hot rather than wear sneakers. Optics, you know. When I arrived, I knew I’d made the right decision. Walking through the glass door I was greeted by two girls at the reception desk who pointed to a tablet for me to sign in to. They both wore only black, and when one of them showed me to a room with a sturdy wooden table and branded pens, I noticed her black leather heels. I filled out an application which, as they all are, was a form asking me to write out everything that is already on my resume. I handed it back to her when I was finished, and then waited to be greeted by two similarly dressed women, close to my age, who both firmly shook my hand. They had my resume printed out in front of them and a list of questions which they jotted down notes under.

 

I went to work charming them and selling them the lie I have to tell in interviews for office jobs, which is that I am finally settling down after years of travelling. I have gotten quite good at this lie, and nearly convince myself sometimes. I tell them how nice it is to be looking for jobs where I want to stay for a while, and how I want to put down roots. I have a line about wanting to put up a shelf that people love, and these two women ate it up. When the interview was over, I waved goodbye to the girls at the reception desk, got in my car and phoned Conor: “I definitely got that one, they loved me,” I told him. As I left the parking lot, a girl who I assume is next up for the interview walked up to the reception doors; she was wearing sneakers and a white t-shirt.

 

Sure enough, when Conor and I arrive at a country pub to meet his sister 1.5 hours later, I have a missed call from the recruitment agency. She says congratulations, Raylene! They want me to start Tuesday, fill out one million induction forms and am I okay to do a medical? I say yes, no worries, of course, how exciting! Conor and I cheers our beers and my adrenaline from the interview turns into wave of relief. I’m finally employed. The grovelling and the performing is over. I’m going to have income again!

 

We order chicken burgers to celebrate, and I message a girl on Facebook Marketplace about a pair of Dr. Marten loafers. I bargain down the price and she says I can pick them up later that day.

 

 

I never hear from the sales job.

[australieh]

girl dinner

there's something about stonefruit. turns out all you have to do to find the beauty in the world again is cycle to the markets and buy a peach so ripe it mushes all up in your bag. while you're there, grab a glass of wine at the winery booth and a cone of gelato at the gelato booth. sit outside with your bulging bag of mushy stonefruit and lick your cone of melty gelato while your wine warms in the sun. read a book and contemplate going to see the new rom com at the movie theatre by yourself, but don't buy the ticket in case you get home and don't feel like biking against the wind to get there. in the moment, though, think about how nice it would be to put on a sweatshirt and buy a bag of popcorn and slurp up one of those giant diet cokes. remember being a teenager and going to the movies with your sister every weekend; eating so much sour candy you couldn't feel your tongue, and giggling for hours about nothing at all. think about what you would give right now to watch a movie at the north edmonton cineplex with your sister and drive your moms old minivan home.

when you get home, unload all the mushy stonefruit from the crocheted bag your mom made you when she visited last. chuck your favourite cutting board on the counter, the one that reminds you of the cutting boards your pepere used to make (specifically the one that sits in a box in your mom's spare room, patiently waiting with her for your return). chop up your freshly rinsed plums, nectarines and peaches- first up will be the black plums. don't let the first piece spend even a second on the cutting board. bring that gooey juicy mess right up to your lips! taste the sweet, summery freshness of it. let your mind flash to your mom handing you bowls of cut up stonefruit, each slice evenly cut. here, in your own kitchen, you cannot fathom how she cut them so perfectly. yours are a mess, all wonky and misshapen. smile to yourself and say out loud: "whatever! yum!!"

now, for dinner you'll eat your wonkily sliced up stonefruit and fresh, creamy marinated feta. the kind you could eat straight from the jar if that was the kind of thing people did. "What did you have for lunch, Beatrix?" "Oh, this delicious jar of marinated feta!" "Oh, how marvelous!" you've just watched Miss Potter and now your internal voice is a fancy british lady from the year 1900. british ladies probably didn't eat fancy cheese with rice cakes from the IGA, but I think they'd approve of a young woman watching her figure. or, in your case, a young woman who bloats for a week every time she eats bread. pish posh, same difference.

and so is the magic of stonefruit. a regular degular afternoon, uninspired but for the galing wind blowing the trees around in a cacophony of leaves-against-leaves. a girl attempts to find something to do in a beach town when the beach does not appeal to her, and is saved by the sweetness of a peach. until next time.

0 notes

[australieh]

Jobless in July

I am unemployed again! This time last year I was “fun-employed” as I liked to call it, but this time it’s different. This time it’s not by choice, and it’s not in the summer, and I am not surrounded by my closest friends and family. So it is not so fun. 

Perth is mid-winter right now, meaning gloomy days filled with rain and wind. Everyone wears dark coloured puffer vests and jackets, toques and blundstones. I have to admit it makes me chuckle a bit- these people don’t know what winter is. They all stay inside, except to walk their dogs and buy groceries and go to their jobs. The hospitality industry slows to a crawl because of this, which is why I, a backpacker, cannot get a job for the life of me. Which is why I, unemployed, cycle to the bookstore in a tshirt, passing the dog walkers and grocery buyers all bundled up in their puffy coats. I silently curse these job goers for staying home and putting me out of a job. 

On this bike ride I have a thought that often occurs to me in this neighbourhood, in this city, in this country: I don’t belong here. I don’t fit in here. This upside down, backwards place where July weather makes me want to watch Halloween movies and prepare for Christmas. This neighbourhood which is full of families and 9-5ers, and where I rarely see another person in their 20′s. This city, where I am considered plus size because everyone else seems to be thin and fit and put together. 

I was reminded of this thought quite brutally the week I got back from El Questro. I got called to come in for an interview with a temp agency, and so off I went. I put on my new pants (the ones I had to buy after trying on the only nice pair of pants I brought with me from Canada and finding I could barely button them) and hopped on the train to the city. From the train I trudged 20 minutes up a steep hill, following the hoards of job goers who were walking to lunch; all dressed in identical business clothes. I weaved between them and tried to ignore the feeling of dread pulling at my soul. I had always run away from this world and here I was, marching up a hill to sit and smile nicely and beg to be initiated into it. 

When I got to the office I was shown to the board room and given a glass of water. The young receptionist, blonde and barely 25, handed me four cards with work personality traits on them and told me to choose which one I most identified with. I read through them and tried my best to fit myself into the boxes on the cards; Was I analytical and logical, or a big picture thinker with emotional decision making? My whole life I have been both, and my whole life I have been told to choose one. I rifled between the cards for five minutes before setting them aside.

Ten minutes later the lady I met with promptly, and rather bluntly, ripped apart my resume. She was in her 50′s and mentioned her daughter a few times. She was wearing a turtle neck, a blazer and heeled boots, and she made me want to sit up straight. It felt like meeting with my own mother, and when I told her I hadn’t bought any office clothes yet she tsked and started naming thrift stores in my area where I could find a blazer. I didn’t mention how hard it is to find clothes in my size at the thrift stores in my area, only nodding instead. She never mentioned the personality cards. 

When I left the meeting I sat on a brick garden wall outside the building and thought about how badly I had to pee. I’d felt too embarrassed to ask for the washroom, and mostly I just wanted to get the hell out of there. I snapchatted my friends from El Questro about how dumb I felt for not wearing business clothes to an interview for an office job, and how out of place I felt in the city after 3 months in the bush. Then I walked back towards the train and found a coffee shop busy enough that they wouldn’t notice if I used the toilet without buying anything. 

On the train home I thought about how today wasn’t the first time I’d felt out of place in a city. I don’t know how to stop correlating crowds with nausea, but ever since graduating and travelling that’s how I’ve felt. Being around so many people in such concentrated spaces makes me feel like I am suffocating. That’s how I felt in Edmonton, in Calgary and now in Perth. I look around at all the people wearing the same white sneakers and zip up jackets and I feel sick to my stomach about the state of the world. I see the job goers and dog walkers and grocery shoppers just living their life, same as me, and all I can think is capitalism consumerism landfill nuclear family heteronormativity patriarchy etc etc. It’s my curse as a social sciences studier. 

I know this a dramatic story and I’m sure you're thinking, okay, Raylene. Relax, your life isn’t that bad. And you’d be right! It is actually a very good life, and the thing about me is I am great at seeing both sides. I am logical and I am big picture; detail oriented and creative. I don’t fit into any big box, but there are some little boxes I do fit into. Because I am feeling wordy right now, here are a few:

One absolute sure fire thing, no ifs ands or buts about it, is that I am a Coffee Gal. At least once a week a cappuccino will restore my faith in humanity. I will have a full blown meltdown about what it means to be a member of society in this specific point in history, and then I will cycle to the coffee shop and order a fluffy warm beverage because it’s the only thing I can think of to cure my despair. And it does; that specific combination of steamed milk and espresso is my magic little fix. 

Another solid truth about me, is that I am lazy. Truly and simply, I am a lazy girl. I love to lay in bed and scroll instagram. I love to curl up in the lazy boy I got for free from verge collection and watch movies I’ve already seen. If I am feeling creative I sit in the sunny window in my living room reading or painting. On a night out I will not be on the dance floor, but sitting down at a table with my drink and chit chatting. I like to say I am chill but really, I am just lazy. 

One last truth about me is that I am a fake vegetarian. Largely this is because chicken is so tasty, but it is also because I am so chalk full of contradictions. Everything inside of me wants to go a different way, explore a different feeling, experience a different thing. I guess that’s how I ended up here, isn’t it? Here, in this big city, drinking cappuccinos and cycling past dog walkers after a meltdown about which outfit to wear. I hope I never change.

[australieh]

Good afternoon from Perth! My Aussie home base. I am back here after three months working in the Kimberley; the wild untouched lands of northwest Australia. It is a 3.5 hour plane ride north of here and yet somehow still in the same state. 

I arrived here much different than I left. Shins scratched up, split ends, a cavity that needs to be filled. Red dirt in my nose and my lungs. I am 3 pairs of shoes poorer; one lost to mould, one worn out from walking through spinifex and pandanus, and the other with souls so thinned by the rock I didn’t bother wasting space in my bag for them. I left my towel, stained by red dirt and grass, hanging on the communal clothes line, and I donated my worn out SkipBo cards to the staff games pile. My sunglasses are at the bottom of the Chamberlain Gorge, no doubt sitting there with a hundred other pairs. 

What I did fit in my bag were polaroids from sunset drives, swimsuits that still smelled like the Pentecost River, and a pair of blue jeans that will never be clean again. A new beer coozy made it in there, and a card from the girls saying how much they’ll miss me. A crocheted Mario Kart mushroom, a decorated envelope with gift cards inside, and a sketchbook full of crocodile paintings. Even my phone has a crack in the screen from dropping it on the broken-up sandstone they call a road, while we drove up a ridge to a lookout point. The speaker on it isn’t the same, either, but there are hundreds of photos on it to remind me where the dirt in the charging port came from. 

The other thing that’s different is my heart. When I got to Australia I was afraid of opening it up. My recent years in Canmore and Calgary held a lot of love but also a lot of hurt, and it felt scary to move to a new place and meet new people who I’d inevitably have to leave again. The last 4-5 years of my life has been so full of exploration and travel and new people, which is beautiful and exciting but also sometimes so sad. Nobody ever talks about the part of travelling which is the feeling of constantly missing people. Over and over again meeting gorgeous people and then saying goodbye to them. It’s hard on the heart. 

El Questro forced me to open up again. There is only so much living and working and eating together you can do before you fall in love with the people around you. Our little staff village became a community so quickly, and parts of it felt like family. The girls at reception were my sisters by the end, reminding me I need to eat before I get hangry and teasing me about my bedhead. We bickered and hugged and laughed like family, and without even realizing it I was loving fearlessly again. Staying at dinner to chat instead of taking food to my room, singing loudly to music while we dance around the fire, painting with friends rather than by myself. Those were the bigger things but in the smaller things, opening your heart helps you notice the beauty that this silly little world is absolutely riddled with. The wind rattling leaves off of the batwing trees, ants carrying small snacks over branches, the way the moon changes paths every night. You notice how every evening exactly 10 minutes before the sun sets, the Corellas take flight and squawk so loudly you’d think they are announcing the end of another day. Looking around in a group of people you really actually care for so much, it becomes so un-scary to love that you can’t believe you were ever stupid enough to close off your heart. 

[australieh]

excerpts from a life

Today i feel like things are opening up. I feel like i am so strong and capable and beautiful. I feel like everything i have done has led me to this very moment, waiting at the bus stop in fremantle with the just-cold-enough breeze rustling my tshirt and shorts and loose bun. Letting myself listen to taylor swift’s best album since fearless which is of course folklore. The sky is that soft subtle pink&blue that happens just after the sun has gone below the ocean horizon. A car of 19yr old boys just stuck their tongues out at me and waved and it made me smile big and solid and genuine. I even got that tickle in my chest you only get when you’re sincerely taken off guard by something so joyous. Us humans call it a giggle.

“at least I’m trying” - taylor swift

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Today is a Bad Day. It helps to write about it and it helps to get off the couch and go to my job. It helps to walk outside in the wind and feel all the bad energy bubbling up at the top of my chest and think about different ways to get it out. I want to run into the ocean and swallow as much salt water as i can and then throw it all up. I want to run uphill into the wind in really comfortable shoes and then jump off of a really high cliff into extremely cold water. I want to work for 6 hours straight with my head down and not think about anything except for what cocktail is next to make. I want to drink sour champagne and eat warm grapes and feel them explode in my mouth. It helps to listen to queen and belt out “sometimes I wish I’d never been born at all” in my apartment alone. Today is a Bad Day. 

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Turns out there is no escaping sweat in australia. Its only spring and its 30 degrees! At least everything is beautiful and sunny. I have polarized sunnies finally so i don’t get irritated just by going outside. I feel kinda giggly today. I think its from having trixie and katya in the background and watching some of the tik toks janelle sent me. Also maybe from consuming a lot of caffeine in the mere 4 hours I’ve been out of bed (its 4:30pm). Anyways its almost my stop and my phones dying!

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alright listen. its just after midnight and I am bored as hell. I'm listening to old jazz/soul/folk inspired by Can't Get Started by Ella Nelson which is featured in a few episodes of Gilmore Girls season 2. this bout of sickness has led to a somewhat unintentional rewatch from mid-season 2. I am currently almost finished season 3. Its the good years, right when Rory and Jess are getting good. I am losing interest right about now when they start to fall apart because he is shitty and she is weak for his charm. I ended up on the Gals after I couldn't hack Below Deck any longer. only so much forced drama you can watch, ya know. plus, its better when I'm watching it with conor. speaking of my dearly beloved,,, he is out with The Guys. the band, Aborted Tortoise (real actual band name they've kept from its inception in high school), is playing at a bar with a name like Clancy’s or Choncey’s or something. Its right near the tiny brewery conor just got a job at, so it worked out perfect for him. I am really happy he is getting some socializing in. he is really not himself when he can't see friends. my little extraverted social butterfly!

[australieh]

If you didn’t already know, Perth is one of the windiest cities in the world. often I feel irritated by it, like when it blows the sand in my face and knocks over umbrellas at the beach. but there are also lots of days when it is actually a saving grace. on a 35 degree day there is nothing better than the sea breeze to cool you down, and you can always open your windows in the evening to get some air flowing into a stuffy living room. I am learning to love the wind.

today I woke up feeling groggy and heavy. it wasn’t until I cycled to get a coffee, uphill into the wind, that I felt my brain clear up. for the rest of the day I felt so light and inspired, and I thought about the wind. firstly I thought about the noise the leaves make when they rustle in the breeze, deafening and calming. I thought about standing at the shore facing into the wind, closing your eyes and feeling as if you could lift off with its power.

more delightfully, I thought about how maybe I feel so inspired because this windy city is so full of life! maybe the breeze blows everyone’s ideas around and they pass between our ears and prickle all the little creative hairs in there. all that bubbly joyous aliveness just wooshing around the city! I just want to sit all day and watch the trees sway in the wind and feel the pretty thoughts sweep away the dust from my brain. I think maybe if I sit in the breezy park long enough that all the negative thoughts I've ever had will lose their grip on those little creative hairs and fly right out of my ear holes. they’ll woosh right out of there and all of a sudden I’ll feel like a small child again with a squeaky clean, fresh start brain. all of life will feel shiny and bright, like how white laundry looks hanging out in the sun; blinding and sparkling and clean.  

sometimes I wish I could take my life and throw it in the wash with half a cup of baking soda; hang it to dry and watch the stains fade away. I want to bring my life in from the clothesline saying, wow! looks brand new! you’d never know i’d spilled that coffee on it the other day! I would also love to be able to rock up to a kiosk in a mall and say, hello sir, I would like your best deal on a new pair of MCL’s please. I ruined mine slipping on a wet floor and I didn't do the exercises and now when I bend down my knees click! woopsie daises!

I don't need to say that that’s not how life works, because you know that and I know that. we are talking about wishes here, silly little daydreams you have when you are nearing another birthday and reflecting on your silly little life. I am turning 27 in two weeks, and rather than reflect I'll just state a bunch of facts: I just finished a paint by number of 3 fat ladies in swim suits embracing each other. next month I will be living in a caravan on a citrus farm, slicing oranges for a kind family with an 8 month old puppy and a pet cockatoo. I cut my own hair and choose wine by how pretty the label is. last week I designed a website for my marketing class for a made up brewery inspired by my film photos from 2 years ago. and, mostly, I am pretty much happy. 

[australieh]

Who are you tonight? Any night? Do you know that person?... You can meet yourself anytime you make the time.

hello, I am Raylene. you can call me Ray for short, if you like. I like to take long walks on the beach with the wind slapping my hair around and the seaweed clumps throwing salty ocean air into my nose. I like to watch the kites from the kite surfers fly around in the pale blue sky beyond the rock pile in front of me. they form a crescent moon shape every so often, and my heart smiles when it happens. the sunset light glistens off of the tips of the waves, and a man stands on the edge of the rock pile fishing. he is wearing stylish fisherman clothes and he looks like he knows what he is doing because the rocks are very high and he is barefoot. 

my name is Raylene and I like to paint and I like to write. sometimes I like to read, but only occasionally and never novels. not in a pretentious way, more in an attention span way. I like short stories and poetry and essays; they are short and sweet, or not sweet, and they are usually a bit weird which I like. I also have a thing where I hate beginnings and endings. in a short story you start right, smack in the middle and by the time you've matched the characters to the faces in your head you are already at the climax of the plot. then a quick, painless ending. no dilly dallying, no beating around the bush. deal with it and move on. poems are the same, but prettier and more evocative. all small words and big meanings, you know. I love that shit. I love themes and metaphors and imagery, and so of course I love essays because they are like presents in written form. a bunch of paragraphs tied together with a ribbon and a tag that says these words are my ideas and they are from me to you, reader!

my name is Ray, and my bike got stolen today. I was very affected by it, as I am by many things (small or large). I ran the image of some man strolling up to my bike and confidently walking away with it at least a thousand times through my brain. who does that? I thought. I wracked my brain for the image of myself parking my bike yesterday. I probably didn’t lock it, that’s my fault. I am a person who wants so badly to have faith in the world that I leave my crappy bike unlocked. in turn, this makes me the person scrolling facebook marketplace on the train home for the best deal on a used cruiser bike. oh well! write about it. paint a picture of it. deal with it and move on. 

I am Raylene, and I am a 26 year old woman with bad knees and weak ankles and large thighs. my birthday is in February, and I have a loud laugh and a bright smile and a sharp wit. I love coffee, my boyfriend and Joni Mitchell in that order. and I am still getting to know myself. I think I always will be.

* 

“I am awfully greedy; I want everything from life. I want to be a woman and to be a man, to have many friends and to have loneliness, to work much and write good books, to travel and enjoy myself, to be selfish and to be unselfish… You see, it is difficult to get all which I want. And then when I do not succeed I get mad with anger.” - Simone de Beauvoir 

[australieh]

I love australia. I love going to the beach to watch the sunset, even when rain clouds are looming, and seeing a bright pink rainbow. I love my new tote bag with a sunflower and a capital R on it (is that not MADE for me?) which I picked up from a surf shop. I love spending too much money on olive oil and heirloom tomatoes and gnocchi at the italian store called Sal’s Deli. I love walking to the coffee shop and smelling the pretty flowers while Conor picks a lemon off of a neighbours tree. I love looking out the window at my rooftop bar job and seeing the ocean less than a kilometre away. I love trying beers and wines on a tour of Margaret River, which reminded me of Kelowna back home. It’s all so beautiful and it’s just the start! 

[australieh]

photos from in and around my apartment

I am really enjoying our little space. eating oranges on the al fresco, baking foccacia and vegetables, drinking wine with pretty labels. I hang out with the neighbourhood cats, and I’m careful not to step on the snails when it rains. it’s a lovely little place! 

[australieh]

thoughts from a rainy day in october

something about being a Canadian in Australia during October is that I am absolutely craving comfy fall food. I want to curl up in a blanket on the couch with a bowl of potato leek soup and watch gilmore girls all evening long. I want to roast brussel sprouts and broccolini and squash, and drink warm cups of bone broth. it probably doesn't help that I am sick right now, or that the temperature hasnt been above 20 in a while. I can't believe I am saying it but 15 degrees is actually quite cold! the sea breeze (nick-named the “Fremantle Doctor” by locals) comes in around 2pm every day and chills you to the bone, whether you're in the sun or not. the buildings don't really have windows, the walls are made of brick and the floor is concrete tile. you want it that way considering you would get baked to death in the summer without those features. however, it makes for quite a cold, dark environment- especially when you're spending 5 days in a row home sick.

so, here I am. walking to the store to buy a million vegetables and throw them in the oven slicked in oil and tossed in garlic, thyme and rosemary. there might be a day in the future where vegetables don't excite me as much they have since I worked in organic produce, but I have not yet encountered it. I hope I never do! I walk into the produce section and spend easily 20 minutes inspecting the vegetables. purple cauliflower, asparagus on sale, 3 varietals of bok choy; don't even get me started on the citrus or we’ll be here all day. weird or not, browsing through the colourful sections of apples and kales and onions brings my soul a crazy amount of joy. 

these days, the joys I find in small things feel much more important. I am in my fourth year of being away from home, and I have always found ways to bring home to me through food. when I am sick, as I am now, I make what my mom has called “St. Anne’s Soup” since I was probably 10 years old. stirring the pot of chicken broth, canned tomatoes and mirepoix, I feel the same warm feeling in my chest that shows up when I am pulling in to her driveway. every christmas I make shortbread cookies, also my mom’s recipe. when I bite into them I feel I could be 13 again, sitting at the table with my sister after dinner at memere and pepere’s house. I keep my bread in the freezer and microwave it so the butter melts and the edges are crispy, just like we ate at my grandma’s house when she picked us up from school. every time I order pizza I put my fingers to my lips, kiss them and exclaim ‘foccacia!” in my worst italian accent. I eat it on the couch with the tv on and laugh loudly at a stupid movie, and it’s like my dad is sitting next to me. these little joys, and the memories that come with them, they help fill the spot in my heart thats missing home. they make the rainy days warm and full of light.

[australieh]

Dear Mom,

I am very sorry to inform you but unfortunately my lame and horrible resume has not set me up for success in an office environment and I am doomed  to work in a dead-end worthless position like Bartender or Canapé Carrier. I will forever be the one dressed in black, handing champagne to people wearing colourful suits and skirts. Even though it is my deep desire to be the one dressed in expensive evening wear while I say “ta” and order Negroni Sbagliatos, I have decided to give up on that dream and resign myself to my future. I am clearly destined to clean up tiny napkins and pop open champagne bottles as discretely as possible. While the guests take uber’s or collect their valeted cars, I will jog-walk to catch the train home carrying my dress shoes and shoving leftover canapés in my mouth. Afterwards I will find the chocolate filling from a squirrelled away donut all over my $5 tote bag and curse too loudly at the station. 

I am terribly sorry to be the bearer of such bad news. I know that maybe if I had volunteered here and interned there, my resume might not look so pitiful. Or, maybe especially, if I had not wasted my potential all these years working at an icefield or a restaurant or a grocery store, maybe employers would not look at my resume and go “bachelor’s degree? 3 years ago? in the ARTS? pffft. useless. throw it in the trash with the rest of the hospitality losers.” Maybe once upon a time I had an opportunity to be one of those champagne drinking, expensive watch wearing event goers who I serve salmon blini’s to on weekends. Alas, I have wasted it all away: my potential, and the 30 grand my parents saved for years to pay for my university tuition. Given it up to pour beer and polish glassware for hours on end in uncomfortable shoes. 

To all those who may have thought I'd ever amount to something bigger, I apologize. I know I fooled you with my high academic standings and my ambition in the early years, but there’s nothing like a few years of hospitality to knock that out of you! Don't feel bad. I fooled myself, too. 

Thank you for your time and I hope you do not find yourself too disappointed. I will do my best to make up for being such a failure! Things like showing you how many plates I can carry and giving you free bottles of gin, and maybe even one day coming to live with you since I can't afford a mortgage and haven't had dental benefits since university. 

Love you lots! Sincerely,

Raylene

P.S. At least all my schooling gave me the skills to write you this apology letter! Silver linings, right?

[australieh]

lucky

every once in a while, if you're lucky, you look around at your life and realize you have everything you've ever wanted. you have a bed to sleep in, and a soft pretty blanket to lay over it in the morning. you have a microwave to heat up your coffee when you've let it go cold because you're too enthralled in your book. you have a wine rack, a vase for flowers and maybe even a cupboard devoted to spices. you have a thousand little things that make a life!

best of all, if you’re lucky, you have a partner to share it all with. to team up with, to laugh with, to be silly with. to argue about who’s turn it is to take the washing off the line or where to put the shoe rack. you look at them and you take this moment and you remember that once, this was all you wanted. someone who loves you back. someone who sings with you in the car, who will get up to fill your drink, who will sleep that extra 10 minutes with you when the alarm goes off too early. those are the lucky parts.

when I started writing this post I was going to write about my new apartment and my new city. I was going to write about how all my life I’ve wanted to live next to a beautiful beach where dogs run free and the sea breeze blows my hair around. as I wrote, though, I realized it wasn’t just about Where I am. all my life I’ve longed for adventure and laughter and inspiration, and I’ve prioritized those things, and so now here I am. I am 26 years old, I live in a quiet little 1 bedroom apartment with my partner, and I carry trays of canapés for work. on weekends I go to breweries and watch sunsets and heckle reality tv stars with my best friend, who is also my partner. I am lucky. 

I've moved around quite a lot already in my short life; I am no stranger to new beginnings. I love the feeling of sitting down in your new apartment, surrounded by the few items of furniture you've scrounged up from family and friends, facebook marketplace or thrift stores. you've arranged them just to your liking and you are Really Doing It. you are making it on your own, all by yourself, in a new place. it takes a lot of courage, I think. to face the unknown and jump right out of your comfort zone. I am addicted to how alive it makes me feel, and how clear the things that truly matter start to become. biking around my new neighbourhood on the rusty red cruiser I bought, it all unfolds in front of me. here’s my new coffee shop, here’s the local pub, here is the pharmacy I'll buy sunscreen and cold & flu medicine from. it’s all there and it’s right in front of me and it is mine to make something of. to know this, and to have this: I am lucky.

[australieh]

The world of food in Australia!

Everything is so big! The markets and grocery stores are full of ruby red strawberries, each big as a golf ball, and watermelons the size of soccer balls. “Paw paw’s” aka papayas, and “rockmelons” aka cantaloupe. Avocados from as much $5 each to as little as $1 each. It excites me so much! Makes me want to fill my fridge with fresh greens and citrus and berries. Line up herbs along my window sill to use for pasta sauce and potatoes, hang bundles of garlic and onions for soups, stack tomatoes and ginger and lemons in a bowl on the counter.

Then there are the sweets! More types of chocolate than I’ve ever seen, most by Cadbury. Flakes, which are what they sound like. Bars of flakey goodness that melt in your mouth and crumble on your tshirt when you bite into them. Tiny koala shaped chocolates filled with caramel, called Caramela Koala. They are quite literal with their candy, or “lollies” as they call them.

Not pictured above is dairy. Their butter is yellow, but their cheese is white. Cheddar cheese, even, is white. What the hell is that dude. Pretty cheap, though! 5 bucks for a wheel of brie, which Conor was over the moon about. I ate half a block of goat cheese today, $5 as well which I’m pretending was also cheap.

Coffee is different as well. Household coffee is instant, something called Moccona which honestly doesn’t taste bad. When you order at a shop, though, its a whole other word. I ordered an Americano, sounding and feeling embarassingly Californian, and was corrected to say Long Black. Lattes are not as common as flat whites. And overall it is some of the best coffee I have ever had. No starbucks or tim hortons on every corner. We’re talking real, gourmet coffee here folks.

On the topic of food, alcohol is obviously different. Insanely insanely expensive as we’ve so far seen. Wine is absolutely everywhere. Not uncommon to see a 2 page vino list at a random pub. A pint of beer, shitty light draft beer, is on average $11. Nicer beer will be $13-14. And don’t even try craft beer because a single tall can is $18. Cider, for some reason is not as bad? Bought a 4 pack for $24 I think. Still fucking insane but, you know. Basically, I think I will be drinking a lot of wine!

As for restaurants, also expensive. BUT, and this is a big but, there is no tipping and no tax. The price on the menu is the price you pay. You rock up to the bar, tell them your order and table number, pay and thats it. They bring you the food and when you’re finished eating, good to go. So, it evens out I guess? Still a bit hard to get used to seeing a $26 burger, though. Same with a $20 cocktail!

That’s all at the moment! Hope you’re eating well, drinking well, sleeping well and being well. Ta ta for now!

[australieh]

September 8, 2022

I am on an adventure! It’s been so long! So long, since I’ve filled my bag with essentials and taken off with nothing but ideals and juuuust enough money to get me there.

It’s been so long, since I’ve crammed myself into a foot and a half wide airplane seat and eaten mushy broccoli with tiny plastic cutlery! What a horrible thrill it is! This amazing feat of human engineering happens right before my eyes and all I can think is “I hope I don’t die I hope I don’t die.”

So far this trip has been a bit different. With age and experience comes more anxiety, more what-ifs, more can’t-do-withouts. At age 20 I was booking the cheapest flight possible. 12 hour layover in a foreign airport where I can barely read the signs and every source of food will be closed? No worries, as long as it saves me a couple hundred bucks. Now, at 26? Absolutely the fuck not. Time is money, baby. Comfort is a luxury I can and will be affording. My carry on is weighing in at about 20 pounds because I was not going to be sacrificing that extra book, change of clothes and bag of snacks.

To be fair, I also have never done a 15 hour flight before. That was a new one I can check off the bucket list. It really wasn’t too bad, all things considered. 3 episodes of a trashy reality show, 2 tiny (surprisingly deadly) bottles of wine and a ginger-melatonin gravol and I was out for about 8 hours. Woke up fresh as a frigging spring chicken.

I will say, though, that this has not been the smoothest trip I’ve ever had. It’s both hilarious and frustrating, considering how much more thought and preparation I put into this one than I have in the past. Almost 30 hours in total of delays, 2 hours through customs at the Sydney airport, deadly period cramps. But, it is what it is! As Conor would say.

Speaking of my lovely boyfriend, he is sitting on the floor next to me reading Don Quixote (the same book he’s been “reading” for 4 years). He is barefoot, as he often is in public places (he’s Australian, don’t judge him- I do, but you can’t). And, as always, he is relaxed, content, optimistic. You’d never know he’d been sat in the middle seat of an airplane for 15 hours at 6’2”, only to get off and be told he’d missed his connection. He is an angel from heaven I’m pretty sure.

As for me, I do my best. Did I cry when they told us we’d missed our flight after the chaos of customs? Yeah, obviously. Did I complain about how uncomfortable I am even though Conor let me have the window seat and I’m wearing sweatpants? Yes. But, did I take out my frustration on Conor or staff? No! Small victories, ya know.

Now, staring out at dreary Melbourne through the giant windows near our gate, I am feeling good. Only one more flight, baggage claim and a taxi to our airbnb stands between me and a bed. I’m listening to Caamp’s new album, Lavender Days, which perfectly suits the moody, peaceful vibe of this layover. What is ahead is exciting, and that’s what matters.

“What lights you up? / what makes your blood run cold? / until tomorrow you can drown away your sorrows / you can drink till the cows come home / something deep has been darkening your soul /and nobody likes drinking or thinking alone/ keep moving on”