Sentiments on Sunrises

Monday morning (when I am writing this intro bit) has reared it's head upon me after I enjoyed some late night Sunday reggae and revelry, leaving me somewhat disorganised for the week and also hunting down an almond croissant.

I awoke to the 8am heat stifling through the bedroom, and went about my business.

I don't really get the Monday-itis as weekends are usually as work filled as every other day for me, and I also mostly enjoy what I do for work so this picture kind of does and doesn't apply but I hope it gives you a chuckle.

Below are my sentiments I wrote last week when I was riding to an early morning meditation class and got to experience what I feel is one of the best parts of the day. 

Sunrise gives a special sense of optimism.

The potential for a new day is smeared across the sky in mandarin hues.

A time of the day reserved for tradies, joggers and shift workers, the morning haze lifts on the night before like blurry eyelids lift their gaze to others on the first tram.

The hustle and bustle is slow to wake, snoozing till the last minute then suddenly having to go at record speed to get to work in time.

I have been a fan of sunrises since I was young. I remember getting up super early to head to the mountain to go skiing. Sitting in our sleeping bags and thermals in the car, making our ascent up Mt Ruapehu and seeing the weak winter sunrise yawn over the snowy but sludgy peaks. 

In Cambodia last year my room had 3 walls, and one open side onto the Kampot river. I could glimpse the subtle indigo to peach kaleidoscopic changes through one eyelid and roll over to snooze till the heat crept up on my back and kayakers started becoming a more regular presence. Sigh.

Earlier this year on our road trip from Byron Bay to Adelaide, we saw sunrise atop Mount Warning, just outside Mullumbimby. The ascent in the dark was challenging, and the incoming light was the main motivation to plod with pace to the summit. The clouds distinctly swept away like a magician pulling a table cloth out from under a table and leaving everything un-disturbed, except in this case revealing a stunning view. A few days later, on boyfriend's birthday his first present I gave him was waking him up to sleepily poke our heads out of the skylight of the van to see the vast dry outback sunrise. With no other company but the bugs and birds, he went back to sleep and I enjoyed the coolest (in all senses of the word) part of the day. 

In India for my Yoga Teacher Training, I probably experienced my most consecutive sunrises in my life. We had to be up at 5.15am to have tea before morning Yoga Asana practice. That time in the morning, can be a bit shocking for some and rarely experienced unless going to the airport, waking an extra 30 mins earlier was completely worth it when I could go to the rooftop and watch the morning rouse itself over the base of the Himalayas we were below. The subtlety between each day, the sounds of the birds and view of other rooftop dwellers, some local families or other early morning yogis, are a few of the things I will never forget.

There have been times when I have stayed up all night till sunrise, read my post- "A Vampire's Diary"  to hear how seeing sunrise after seeing daytime, nighttime, daytime, has this strange energy to it that masks your sleep deprivation and makes it all worth it. 

As my Monday rolls on to the rest of the week, I'm going to consciously cherish the mornings, the smiling sunrise and sunbeams shining out of my smile from seeing it.

In the words of Roald Dahl : 

"If you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely." 

I hope I have painted some pretty pictures for you. All it takes is setting your alarm for 5.30am (or probably 10am if you are in the North Pole) and you can experience them for yourself. Trust me, it is magical.

Jj

An Aussie Outback Adventure

I am entering my eep... eighth year of living in Melbourne. Time has not really flown as it seems like a long long time ago I got busted for not doing a hook turn in the CBD in my first week (I thought they were optional) and yelled at for JAY walking, and confused what a bubbler was. It seems many many moons since I was in a room with just a mattress on the floor and a candle on a cardboard box sitting lonely on my bed on a Saturday yearning for a friend to hang out with or at least know somewhere cool to go that wasn't Chadstone, Fed Square or St Kilda Beach.

There may be some of you who have had similar sentiments- the feeling of being in a big city with way more people than you are used to but they are all strangers to you. I worked really really hard to cultivate and curate the vast social and support network I have now; I went to parties where I only knew one person, got lost countless times finding people in bars I had never been to before, and reached out, invited myself to things and everything in between.

Yet, it has taken till this year for me to do what most visitors to Australia do- drive in a van for days and days across the outback. Our itinerary was from Byron Bay to Adelaide. 

There were many moments on this trip that were eyerolling-gushy dream-like scenarios. Partly because it was a new romantic adventure shared with the wonderful man in my life, and partly because the scenery and the nature and weather were spot on-you rippa- for every leg of the journey. 

 

Across 8 days and more than 2000 km, I got to stand in hot, sexy tropical rain, slow dance to a drum circle in Nimbin, swim in multiple creeks and waterfalls. Climbed through lush bush in the dark up a mountain for sunrise. Swam in the sea at 6am and 8pm, both times warm and bracing. Ate delicious tropical fruit, drank craft beer. On the road I saw emus, wild goats, gallahs, a wolf spider, a whitetail spider (which I thought was a piece of chocolate I dropped.) Kangaroos, goanna, lizards, a random yabbie on the mountain, a turkey on the mountain. Went to tiny holes of towns in NSW where the heat pours into your nostrils off the concrete and apparently the water at the gas stations is no good for drinking. The regional accents changed with the landscapes. Kids doing 'mainies' on the 50m stretch of main street. MacGyver'd a knife out of the lid of a tin of tuna to cut cucumber for a wrap. Used a tube of pawpaw ointment as a spoon. Stayed a night in the outback where the sunset couldn't even fit in a panorama and the stars were the only other thing around. Slept a night in caves on the beach, went wine tasting, ate cake for breakfast. 

Adelaide is beautiful. The hills and the small towns and the gentle, softly spoken people combined with the architecture and quaintness of the city tickled my fancy. For having lived in the same country as all of these beautiful things, I kicked myself for not having explored them sooner, but the opportunity was never there.

I did things I never thought I would get to do. Not because I was scared to do them or because I thought they weren't my style, but because I didn't have the right person or circumstances for them to come to fruition.  It made me realise how lucky I was as a kid to be able to explore my own country (which happens to be one of the most beautiful in the world, Kia Ora) with my family, and how sometimes we take for granted what is on our backdoor.

Or 2000km away from your backdoor but still kind of close.

For the first time in my life, I looked out to the horizon that wasn't the sea or a mountain or a building. It was a vast plain outback. Land then sky. Flat and dry. A woman we met at a bar in Byron said that certain stretch of road (somewhere between Broken Hill and the back of who-knows-where, population 70 people, two dogs, one gas station, a dirty toilet and 3 chickens) was really going to be a test on our relationship as it's as dry and as exciting as a stale wheatbix. However, we found that the consistency of the landscape provided a blank canvas for all kinds of ideas to crop up, kind of like how good ideas come to us in the shower. There's something about being trapped in something constant that pushes out creativity.....or sometimes, in our case, some very wonderful moments of honest connection that you don't get to do anywhere than on a long stretch of road as normally you have to negotiate all the things like work and deadlines and instagram and real life stuff that interrupts you. 

There are endless hashtags and albums of flash cards you find in gift stores that mention the inspirational educational advantages of travel; so I am not going to.

Instead, these pictures from the trip will paint the rest of the words needed to summarise this post and tie it into a sweet bow.

CRIKEY!

Jj