Getting Fried

Saturday, the Kozinski family could be seen in a white Toyota heading (sort of) towards Sydney. The gps lady (we named her Luckis) has an Australian accent, so we definitely missed some important turns ("Tahrn reyet at Cah-h-eel"--what?). Unlike most people that day headed to the beach, we didn't care that we had to 'mayek a Yew tahrn at theu nixt rauondabaout' about ten times, because everything was new and fun to look at...Thaddeus figured out how to attach the i-phone to the car speakers, so we played Olaf Arnads "For I am Winter" just to remember Lander and for the sheer beauty.

Overall, we did pretty well. No WWIIIs in the stress of new driving in a new place. The kids are holding up okay, sans some roller-coaster emotions: "I love it" "I want to go home" "Oh, look at THAT. Cool."

Sydney is almost a large-scale Venice, because water is an integral part of the city and its identity; the difference is, I suppose, that the Sydneans very wisely built with nature, not against it. I saw no desperate Italian suction crews. The early Sydneans were trying to survive, not conquer, nature; it is hard to make out the brutal and barren history of the first white people in the stunning natural beauty here, beauty that has been not counteracted but rather celebrated. What they've done in 150 years (about the same time Lander has had) to create beauty tells you something about how nature plays a part in the development of architecture and visible culture.

We came, finally, across a large spit of land that joins onto the Manly area. TJ was at first disappointed because the water looked--well, very calm--and he was looking for thirty-foot waves he could immediately surf. I said, "It looks like a bay, not the ocean" and then remembered that we were probably looking at the bay side of the Manly spit, not the ocean side...we then strolled across down the throughways towards the ocean, waiting to catch a glimpse of the blue, that blue glint, like the wink of God, that always, and ever has, thrilled me since I was a child in Greece, staring out the Opel window for that first glimpse of impossible blue.

The street with its little stands thrilled me, too. I saw beach girls in long flowing dresses, the bottom of their long hair sea-bleached, and I thought again, as I did in Santa Cruz, "My people." It is as I looked as a child, brown and sea-bleach blond. The market area was also like Venice Beach a bit, but thankfully, I saw NO near-naked women on roller skates or people looking crazy for the sake of looking crazy...like their city, the styles seem to go with the nature around, not with rabid individualism. The freak show at Venice always made me want to barf.

The glint of blue came, with the roar of real waves for TJ. The water was not only blue, but green and clear, and the sand is the color of peach, not white. We found a small spot in the sea of humanity and the kids put on their rash guards and went in to ride the waves. I watched a Beauty Couple who nonchalantly leaned against their tattered surfboard, sleeping in the sun. They got up with youthful grace and shook the sand out of their golden locks, equally long hair, the man as beautiful as the woman. They looked so tan.

I looked down at my Wyoming winter arms and realized that I was getting fried. I went in the water and Thaddeus threw me in. Divorce on the horizon for a second. Then I was glad to have a husband who still likes to play like a child. Sort of. He is kind of a Large TJ.

For a few hours, all the busy-ness of the last months--the daily grind plus getting ready for this move--seemed to fall away; I felt like a bird flying.

Then, I had to look online for rentals. What does a 'cottage' or 'modest home' mean here?