My Dad said this to me when we walked in the door of our hotel room, well past our bedtime, at about 10.30pm. “Today was horrendous” he reckons. It stopped me in my tracks, like a comment like that normally would. Only this time the tension was broken, surprisingly, by my own laughter.

His defences went up.

“What? What’s so funny?”

“Horrendous” I repeated to him, through my laughter still.

Then the pedal backwards.

“Oh, come on now. I didn’t mean it like that.”

Apparently laughter is contagious.

“Yes. Yes, you did.”

A new catchphrase is born.

~~~

Ma and Pa were sleeping when I woke up. I had weird dreams about hanging out with people I stalk on Instagram. No one I know, just low-level celebrity people. Reflecting on it after I was questioning if I appeared in their dreams too. They obviously wouldn’t know who I am, now that I think about it, but that realisation didn’t cross my mind when I woke. The other thing I was wondering was if it was my plant medicine showing me where I spend my wasted time, and then I also thought, was it my plant medicine purging this irrelevant muck from my psyche. I don’t have the answer yet.

My plant medicine has been very kind to me recently. I think he can see the work I am doing to help myself and work on my relationship with my parents. I am told he is very forgiving. If this trip has taught me anything, it is that I am looking forward to cultivating a proper routine when I get home. I went days filled with activities and task completion, and I don’t want it to involve scrolling. I also need more daydreaming and writing time. I want to get to a place where I can return to work and have things under control. There is resistance in me to completing this. I am not sure what the missing piece of that is. What do I need more of? Only having this questioning arise with a solution finding answer right now. I will ask my dreams tonight for guidance on this. I haven’t been able to work it out myself yet.

I went for a little walk to get Mum and me some hot water. She is very particular about her tea and I needed to brew some plant medicine. I was keen to get out to explore away from the city lights, noises, and people. When I came back I was making a little bit of intentional noise. Damn the kids are slow at getting ready for the day. Is this some kind of full circle moment? After years of hurrying me along to get ready for school, activities, whatever, now it was my turn to experience the frustration. I didn’t realise that until just now.

Once we got on the road, I was feeling a lot better. Getting out of the city was just what I needed. We packed in so many pit stops along the way.

I roped Mum and Dad into a short hike to this lookout. Dad kept saying that Mum wouldn’t be up to it. But when I asked Mum, she was in full agreement. As it’s always gone, if you don’t get the answer you want from one parent, ask the other. Always play them off each other. Classic manoeuvre. Some things never change. For the record, Dad just didn’t want Mum to get hurt before they head off on their next part of their trip. To be fair, I didn’t want her hurt either.

The only casualty on the trip, turns out, was me.

It was steaming hot, and the middle of the day. They are used to humid heat, and so were doing well in the heat. Me, on the other hand, the hike rocked me. At one stage I wanted to climb onto some tall rocks. Dad was scolding me “Don’t climb any higher, Kate”. A reminder of the old days. It was also funny with my parents telling me to go stand in certain places for photos. I was their model, and made sure they were my models. We got so many great pictures of so many beautiful places we were actually a bit desensitised by the beauty by the end of it. A sign to head home.

A few more things happened, which I wish I could write about tonight, but was you can tell by the time, I am too damn exhausted to do that.

Instead, I will leave you with my highlight of the day. When discussing when I should leave, and my suggestion it should be tomorrow, both of my parents protested I should stay another day. My Mum made the comment “If you leave tomorrow, Kate, I just don’t think I could handle it”. It made my heart sing later in the shower when I was reflecting on the day. Delayed gratification. But at least the compliments are sinking in eventually these days.

So a horrendous day all round.

Lots of love,

Kate