11.4.00

Wordless

I'm finding myself wordless again.

It's where the pen is ready, the keyboard is eager, but my mind isn't quite still enough to let the experiences and expressions come out.

It's not writer's block. Writer's block is where you just want something to write about and it won't come - no ideas, no random thoughts to connect a chain of lucidity and story-telling. Wordlessness is when I have so many things to tell, so many experiences to relay, so many quiet moments that I want to share, and the words refuse to play along. Every sentence started is eventually erased, every experience lost temporarily to a lack of available description.

I wish I could tell you how beautiful the trees are here; I wish I could show you their spring green vividness against the washed out grey sky, allow you to hear the rain as it patters gently outside, experience the simple joy of sitting quietly on my bed in my new home, in a room that hasn't known the procrastination and filth of a bedroom lost in the teenage years.

I'm twenty years old now, so I think I should be able to keep a room neat and tidy - the fact that 95% of my belongings are back in Australia or have been given to friends and the church op shop is a helpful factor in this. All I really have with me are clothes, a few precious notes and cards, a couple of books, some magazines and comic books, and a modest collection of our stuffed toys sitting on top of a cabinet, brightening up the simple room and helping me feel at home.

Not that I need the help. It's amazing how much this house, this place so far from outer-suburban Melbourne, this family home, came to feel so comfortable and so... right, in such a short space of time.

I wanted to tell you about going to the airport and what it was like holding Nathan in my arms for the very first time, but I don't think I have the words to give it all justice. Joanne and Tim had to calm me down as we sat in the international arrivals lounge, listening to me babble incessantly and occasionally whimper in sheer panic. My stomach had been gurgling in a most violent manner all morning, and breakfast hadn't helped matters much. I sat on a curved leather bench and hummed the "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" theme tune to myself, rambling occasionally about how much I missed Oz, being sure to add that James Marster's addition to the start credits partly made up for Seth Green's departure. I couldn't bear to look at the doors where the passengers from Nathan's flight would come through; I didn't want to see someone else wearing a red baseball cap and have to feel my stomach rise and fall, only to have to go through it later when it really was him.

I wanted to tell you sooner, but I didn't have the words.

When he did emerge, Joanne alerted me to his presence and I started moaning in panic, "Oh, my god, I can't do this, I can't do this... I can't...", leading Joanne to hold my hand and lead me to him whilst I followed, eyes shut. It wasn't that I didn't want to see him; I wanted to. I was just afraid to. I was afraid to let him see me, and somehow my mind found comfort in that philosophy of five-year-old's everywhere: if I can't see them, they can't see me.

I opened my eyes, and gazed into his, and I wasn't afraid anymore.

Just relieved.

I don't have the words to describe the feel of his arms around me. I don't have the ability to let you know what feelings were rushing around in my head as Tim drove us home from the airport. We sat in the back seat and just held each other, touching in an amazed fashion - holding each other's hands, running my fingertips very gently over the scar on his right hand, asking him to tell me again the story of how he was hurt, thinking that this eighteen-year-old injury was not ugly but beautiful in a way that I couldn't communicate to anyone but him. We kissed each other on the cheek, still too shy to make continual eye contact, and then I felt his lips against mine, and I almost laughed.

I was nineteen and it was my first kiss.

There's so many other things that I want to tell you, but I'll leave them for another day.

Maybe then, the words will flow better.