Waltzing Australia

[Excerpts from the award-winning travel tale, Waltzing Australia]

[Pages 2-6]

Wednesday, August 17

Sitting at a small desk in a small hotel room, I gaze at my surroundings and wonder out loud what I’ve gotten myself into. I think of all the studying and work that went into getting me here and try to imagine where it will lead. As I organize pens, writing paper, and the few books I thought worth bringing, I think of all the work that will be needed to justify having come. Starting from scratch is not easy—but then, nothing important is.

There are so many dreams tied up in this: starting over; writing; Australia; finding out what I can do, what I need, and maybe who I am. The prospects are both wonderful and frightening.

Starting over is a relatively recent dream, not more than six years old. I have for too long been a prisoner of expectations and what I thought was my career. I worked hard, then harder, till there was nothing except work, and it was not enough. I continued to work and started graduate school part time. Still, it was not enough. I spent ten years working my way up the corporate ladder, trying not to notice the persistent dream that kept whispering, “Jump.”

Writing is an enduring friend and my oldest dream. I have always loved it, and have spent free moments since childhood jotting down thoughts, stories, poems. Even as my corporate career eclipsed everything else, I still wrote. In hotel rooms on business trips, during pauses between meetings, I would dash off poems filled with bits of dreams and memories and burdened with longing for beauty and a different life. But my writing became as tied to the corporate world as I was, and soon I produced little besides business documents, marketing plans, and press releases. I wanted to write something else, but I didn’t do anything else.

Australia is the love affair that tipped the scales toward leaving. For as long as I can remember, Australia was there, waiting for me, though it is only in the last three years that she has become an obsession. Photographs and stories through the years built my fascination, but then something clicked, and it became my focus, the one thing I had to discover. Expectations, security, and fear outweighed my dreams of writing and of starting over, but as this new obsession grew, the balance changed. Australia beckoned, and I had to go.

The dreams are different, yet all are tied together, each affecting the others. My desire to write helps me justify coming, but I would have come anyway, I think—unless, of course, it is because I am a writer that I have such dreams. Who knows for sure? What I do know is that if I’d stayed at home, in the corporate world, the dream would have died.

So I studied and planned, went to Australian movies and read Australian books. I sold my wine collection, books, music, clothes, and, finally, my car. I bought a plane ticket, quit my job, and came. The dream is coming true.

This morning, after eternity in flight, Sydney slid beneath my wings, the harbor, the Opera House, all startlingly familiar. I just touched down before turning north, but I shall return. I traveled on to Brisbane, to—what? the beginning of a new life? a will-o’-the-wisp? I guess time will tell.

At this point, all I have, besides my dreams, is this hotel room, two pieces of over-stuffed luggage, several broken ribs (I thought horse riding lessons would help prepare me for the trip), and a rough idea what I want to see over here—everything. But I am in Australia, and right now, that is all I need.

So here I sit, cup of tea nearby, pen in hand, and try to do one of those things for which I came—write: write about Australia, about change and learning, about dreams coming true. I don’t know what will happen, but dreams evolve in unexpected ways, so I shall just let it unfold, day by day.