Thursday, March 1, 2012

Journeys

I just got home from a five day trip to Australia... WOW!

Not WOW! I got to go to Australia, or WOW! long way for five days, but WOW! “I just got HOME.”

Twenty-three years ago I flew out to the States for a “Holiday,” a short little four and a half week holiday. I know what you’re thinking, just four and a half weeks to come all the way over here? I would have booked for longer, but I had stuff that needed doing back in Oz.

I remember clear as smog the first steps I took outside Tom Bradley International: noisy, warm, and bustling. Cliche, huh? But that's what it was: buses honking, taxis fighting for fares, cops blowing whistles, excited greeters hugging...crying...screaming, hawkers trying to take your luggage cart so they could return it for the fifty-cent refund.

Thirty-two hours in transit: from Perth, to Auckland, to Honolulu, and finally to LAX. I was tired, sore, smelly, and had a total lack of enthusiasm for the ride with my five-year-old nephew to Anaheim on a Grey Lines Hotel bus, but here I stood in the center island of suitcases with the kid pulled so close to me I could pass for a new Transformer.

There’s a smell about America, a smell I immediately identify with: gasoline. In Bahrain: sweat; Singapore: soy sauce; Seoul: prawn crackers; London: cut grass; Venice: swimming pools; Hong Kong: diesel fuel; Sydney: custard pies! It’s a sensory impact for me every time I walk out the sliding glass doors up that little ramp to the street level at Tom Bradley. Nowadays it’s a signal I’m home, but it used to be a signal that I was on holidays.

That trip twenty-three years ago with my five-year-old nephew was supposed to be a trip for just me and him, he was my best mate, the first-born child to any of my siblings. It was also a way for me not to end up in any trouble; I was, after all, responsible for the well-being of a child. However, I met a girl, immediately fell in love, and my life has never been the same since, but thats another story!

There’s two points to this story, the first being that every time I flew out of LAX back to Australia (and that's been many times) I felt like I was flying home, even on this last short trip. But for some reason when I landed last Friday morning and walked up the ramp to the parking lot bus, my nose filling with gasoline fumes, my eyes burning with smog, tired and badly in need of a shower, I felt like I was home. I became an American Citizen eight years ago, but Friday, for the first time, I became an American.

This piece of writing is pretty disjointed I know, but for me it’s the beginning of a journey. I have been a member of the Swaggers and participated fully when we first started, but I’ve been sick, not physically, but mentally. I’ve been dealing with depression and it hasn’t been fun. Those that know me, know me as a jovial funny bugga, who pretty much takes life as it comes and I typically don’t just make lemonade, I make LEMONADE! But this thing threw me a knuckle-ball. I could see it coming. I thought I could handle it. So I swung for the fences and struck out. Three weeks ago I said, "Bugger this!" and removed myself from the drugs I’d been prescribed. It wasn’t a great two weeks, but I think I’m back on a normal path now.

Kim sent me an e-mail a couple of days ago asking for a piece of writing if or when I felt up to it. I have pondered the e-mail she sent me for two days, and here’s the result. Like a very good friend of mine tells me constantly, “There’s only one way to be a writer. Ass in Chair, Words on Paper.” This may be a piece of disjointed, rambling words on paper, but it feels like a victory!
(Kim's note: No, that's not Jon. Not even close. His work-space is much more muse-inspiring.)
Jon Egan

15 comments:

  1. Great post, Jon. I'm glad you're on the mend.

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  2. Glad you're feeling better. And thanks for sharing your journey.

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  3. Thanks Ann, and Natalie, I did just want to nitpick one little, tiny thing about this post!
    That last picture of me sitting at the keyboard was most definitely photo shopped! the photo my wife sent you, I had red slippers? why the change to Green?

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    1. OMG you crack me up. I wondered if you were going to say anything about it. Actually the pic your wife sent me was so indecent it couldn't be posted. So I had to scroll for stock photos and I loved this guy. He's just letting it all hang out in his love for the craft. He probably got a really good idea while he was in the shower and hurried to write it down. His wife, trying to be supportive, brought him a cup of coffee.

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  4. Really, GASOLINE?!? Love all the sensory stuff you mentioned!

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    1. Yep Gasoline, for me its instantaneous, I suppose because they have a covered area and there's no where for the exhaust to vent especially if its a calm day. My question to you is, you asked about Gasoline but not Custard Pies???? :)

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  5. Welcome home, Jon, we've been waiting for you with open arms & hearts. Glad you're back. Now AC/WP, and don't spill the coffee on the keyboard--again!

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  6. Thanks Kathy,
    Patty wont let me have coffee at my desk anymore and! AND I now subscribe to carbonite!

    xox

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    1. so yummy! hard to describe unless you've had one at the Sydney Airport coffee shop :)

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  7. Cheers, Mate! Welcome home and know that the Swaggers are behind you one hundred percent. You are a great writer and a wonderful person and my life is enriched by knowing you. Even your "disjointed" writing is fantastic. Keep your chin up!

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  8. I'll second Gina's comments on your writing, which is often so good that I want to damn all Aussies to a life of marmite-less misery. Ass in chair my friend. You are the real deal.

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  9. Thanks Gina and Juliet or, as I now know you Thelma and Louise... you goils are such great cheerleaders and I for one appreciate it and remember... "I am rubber, you are glue, whatever you say to me sticks to you." or something like that. Yer both great people as are just about every writer I know, except one! and that person knows who I mean. (I'm watching you, not so great, mean writer person)
    Vegemite Juliet, it the poms that eat marmite, we eat Vegemite :)

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  10. Jon-- So glad you came to America 23 years ago--the States wouldn't be the same without you! (and neither would we.)

    Your writing always brings out a flurry of emotions in me. Not just emotions-EMOTIONS! And I like riding that roller coaster.

    By the way, the bravest people I know have gotten the help they need.They've also gotten rid of dem pills. Keep swaggering!

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  11. Yer a doll Sandra, thanks us Commonwealthers (is that a word?) need to stick together!

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