So amazing to see my cousin Claire round the corner a couple nights ago...we sprinted toward each other and haven't stopped giggling "I can't believe you're/I'm here!!!" She is the best "surrogate sister" ever. Her friends at Notre Dame are so warm and welcoming, fun and livin' the dream. Yesterday we went to Stress-Free Fair (it's almost finals week) and I got a massage, did a little yoga, and recharged the batteries! So much fun to be a college student again.
In Fremantle, I’m staying at the YHA Backpackers. I'm rarely there; enough said. My roommate is Kath. She’s about 78 years old. When I arrived at midnight on Wednesday (or Thursday? I’ve lost track) she had the door locked and chained. She wasn’t expecting someone so late, she said, as she answered the door in her baggy white skivvies. I was so out of it that I wondered why Magda from "Something About Mary" was in my room. Oh, my. She is very kind and was well moved in, and I had about 2 inches for my suitcase (she eventually moved her things into her locker, very kind.)
So far, we’ve had two conversations:
1.
Kath: “You’re much better than my last roommate. She was an alcoholic. In a really bad way. A pity, really. Where are you from?”
Anne: [in a jetlaggy way] The States. Oh. Well, that’s good. I mean, that’s not good, but…um…happy to be here. [Kath climbs up on the top bunk – spry as a 20 year-old – and crawls into bed with her Walkman on.] Where are you from?
No answer. At 10 in the morning:
Kath: “Here. I'm from here."
The next night, she’s not back at 9:30 when my body finally shouted at me “GO TO BED! ALL OF US CELLS HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TIME IT IS! WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO US?? WE HURT!” She comes in a bit later, and:
2.
Anne: “How was your day?”
Kath: “Really weird, really weird. So many strange things happened today! I can’t even begin to say. [beat] I am just going to listen to this program. I listen to it every night.”
Back on with the Walkman. And on. And on. All night she sleeps with the radio on, but really low, so it sounds like a cricket. It was actually calming, to have her jaunty spirit above me for the last couple nights. She is as quiet as a mouse, as am I, so it’s working out well.
When I woke up at 4:17 am I was convinced that she is a schizophrenic, and wears the walkman to drown out voices. Then I considered that the radio is her traveling companion, her husband, her mate for now. The woman proves you don’t need much to live. A hoodie would be nice today, though (didn’t pack that).
This morning was one of those on which you can’t wait to get out of bed for the restless fever dreams. Luckily mine were just foggy "where am I" dreams mixed with very sharp and real stories with people from my past; nonetheless, I was actually pumped for the conference call I had scheduled at 8 am.
Reminded I’m on “holiday” I am going to Cottsloe Beach now, and it’s 7:13 pm in San Diego! What fun.
The hum in the hostel bathroom is a G, and just outside, in the common room, it’s an F, so I walk through the common room and back again accompanied by a second all the time. (The common room, by the by, is about 3000% bigger than Kath’s room, and it begs to be built out. I will suggest it to Uncle Erich, the night manager, when I can next stomach his shaky pre-bourbon stature, and perma-yellow Halloween teef. Or not.)
