"...You'd think they'd never seen a girl and a cat on a broomstick before..." or "Return to the Midlands"

My house guest came across this article- and so our plans changed from the southeast coast, to up through the midlands (so pretty but SO far from the ocean).

Kiki's Delivery Service

"...but I say that a boring word like woman takes all the fun out of being a girl..."

I haven't been in a confessional mode.

Not that I have anything to confess.  Well, I suppose I might always have a little something in the 'you are only as sick as your secrets' sort of way.

But most people I come across wouldn't recognize that statement, therefore, I'll keep it squashed a bit longer.

Confessional in a more general- time alone- letting random thoughts out onto (is it 'onto' if one is changing thought into digital modes? I mean that isn't the same as 'onto' the page is it?) or into a space considered larger than my head.

I get like this when I feel I have spent too much time only expressing a certain part of my personality.  I feel this when, acquaintances start to offer me sentiments that are very far from who I am- because then I realize that what I am projecting is not what I mean to project.

Sometimes I fear I do not know how to be myself and be polite at the same time.

Do you know what I mean?   When you are polite about something - let's say something you yourself do not want to do, or to have, or to be a part of, but to be polite you make conversation, you show an interest and the next thing you know you are stuck doing, having, and being a part of some thing you have no real interest in?
 

I remember working at the door of a club once- I am surely remembering the exchange incorrectly, but as I remember it, some person - some date? some one who by some means had seen me 'undone'- commented on the wide gap between the two- the 'me' without make-up on, without a planned outfit.

He went in-depth, my hair is dyed, my shoes were high, my lips over-drawn, freckles blotted out, a mole enhanced, I could go on...

I remember thinking 'What? You question my only creation? How dare you!'.

I think about this because when I see photos of myself now- (mostly) or a reflection because honestly I avoid both, I don't recognize myself.  I feel as if I have been washed in sepia-tones. 

Yet, this is incongruent with how I feel- as in emotionally- emotionally I feel healthy, happy- and often at peace.  But also those feelings I think should somehow beam out of me- showing well, I don't know what- that is the tangle.

Then I came across the photo I have posted and that is how I think of myself- looking- flawless light skin- strong features, instrinsically sad (not in a surface way, you know naturally yet rising above thereby inspiring admiration and hope).

See?

Tangled.

"...all my life I had been searching for trees such as these..."

On this trip, we were not at the beach, but up into the hills-

I thought that the bark falling from the gum trees looked like an Australian version of Spanish Moss covering trees near swamp lands in North America.

 

I did not get a photo, but I finally saw a pink robin!

Here is it's more common flame cousin - captured by yes, my phone, they are not so shy.

 

 Warning:

Cute animal photos to follow-

 

 I thought I couldn't top my blonde pretty wombat, but I think baby wombat is pretty good.  Right before this a Tasmanian Devil galloped by.  An hour before twilight even!

I seem to see wallabies on their own, while the portoroos seem to go around in mobs, but they are so small (rabbit sized) and quick I never get their photo.

I did have a bandicoot come up really close while I was near the camp fire, which means people had food, in pictures they look like large rats- kind of, but in person that doesn't come across, I think because they move differently.  

We worked most of the day, but without much access to power, evenings are much longer-so I still got to swim, hike, stargaze and spot animals.

Once again I found myself climbing what I would call more a convenient 'rock slide' than a trail.  Although I suppose the arrows did zigzag in a way to be safer than trying to just sprint straight up.  The figure in the distance was the woman whose idea it was to walk...I had a person behind me about the same distance away- she was visiting from France, and she was very quiet until the times we came across other people who spoke french. I really thought a lot about what her actual experience was like...