I already danced like no-one is watching…
now I had the chance to sing like no-one is listening
[okay... well maybe not exactly NO-one!]
I am at this moment flying over the Whitsunday Islands winging my way back to the Gold Coast… and home! The clouds are doing something rather odd this morning. They are sketchy and low today. Way away down below us… they’re casting long shadows across the water. It’s early and the sun is still low.
It’s odd to see clouds from this perspective. How used we are to looking UP at them. Now it is we who are up here looking DOWN on them [if that makes any sense at all].
[My grammar check is screaming for me to rephrase this line with that quaint little squiggly green line that underscores grammatical errors in Microsoft Word. And yet I am unmoved! In writing... as in ALL THINGS these days…]
I intend to do it my way!
I can see the plane’s shadow traversing the water below us giving sense to the speed with which we must be travelling. And yet up here it feels as though time is standing still. Suspended… right here where we are… with 35,000 feet of precisely nothing between here and the world below.
I was back in Cairns this week for a couple of days. They told me it had been raining since I left so I could only deduce that the place missed me… (cough cough) which was a reasonable assumption endorsed by the fact that the sun came out upon my arrival… after three solid weeks of rain! [If only I could be that powerful...*sigh* grin]
Fishermen Trinity Inlet on my early Thursday morning walk
Yesterday I went to a Casting for another television commercial… this time with Tourism Australia. You can’t begin to imagine how the emailed Brief piqued my interest. I couldn’t resist!
“Come in shorts with walking boots bush hat and backpack”… it said.
“Be prepared to sing Waltzing Matilda”
I was in!
Let’s face it…when am I ever going to get another chance to sing Waltzing Matilda with the camera rolling? (((chuckles))) Whether or not it ends up on the tellie seems of little consequence at this point. I don’t care. It was just so much fun to go to the casting… talk on camera about the things I love to do [paint write... oh and of course sing]… and yep… finally have my one minute of fame singing Australia’s favourite song!
Not entirely sure national television is ready for that!
But I sure was… and can now strike the experience off my bucket list of odd and extraordinary things I must do one day before I die!
Gold Coast skyline on descent
So just love this country… and would happily sing about it! (((chuckles)))
It was also great to catch up with dear friends again. It’s only been a month since I left… but already there was so much to talk about. It felt kind of nice to know that even though a vast distance now stands between us… these valued friendships will prevail no matter what. It helps me to know this… as I step boldly forward into the next chapter!
Sadly… not pineapple and banana cake *sigh* [grin]
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Daybreak Port Douglas
The Friday before last I received a totally random phone call from the photographer who did the photo shoot for my website back in January this year. He wanted to know if I would be interested in doing a television commercial for one of the major airlines. “Hmmm… this was a first!” Casting was the following morning at 10 and I had other plans. But in the spirit of my recent pledge to say yes to my Universe… I changed them… and agreed to at least go along to the casting.
Long story short… I left not expecting a call… and thought little of it again as I am already more than busy keeping up with my life as it is. But as fate would conspire to have it [yep you guessed it] the call came to tell me to be ready and waiting at the designated spot at the ungodly hour of 3.30 am the following Thursday morning for the transfer by bus and boat to the location for the 12 hour shoot.
Bus AND boat? “You’ve got to be kidding me”
Low Isle – Great Barrier Reef
By now major regret had set in and I consulted a couple of good and patient friends by email who were able to knock me seriously back into shape. I then packed the beach bag bathers hat and sunscreen and very early next morning jumped in the car and did the standing quarter mile to the rendezvous point for the bus. I had left a little later than planned and was grateful [at that hour] for the empty roads and the lack of a police presence to get me there in time for the bus. Ohhhh… but I do so love to drive fast!
The bus trip was uneventful except to say that I just happened to randomly sit next to the sister-in-law of a girl [from Melbourne] whom I had worked along side [and got to know well] at last month’s MusoMagic Workshop in Townsville. I wrote about the workshop recently under Standing on the Edge. The chances of us being on the same assignment.. my choosing that particular seat… or how/why we happened to be talking about it in the first place at that ungodly hour of the morning while everyone else was asleep… seemed incredible to us both.
It occurred to me then that there was more to this adventure than initially met the eye.
A wet start onboard Shaolin
At the Port Douglas Marina we boarded the Shaolin [a replica Chinese Junk] for the 2 hour transfer to offshore Low Isle. The island is deserted except for a caretakers cottage and an unmanned lighthouse. There were a few rudimentary palm frond shelters along the beach… but not all that much shade from the sun.
Leaving Shaolin
It was an odd choice of location I thought… and the shoot would have been way easier to manage back on the mainland… but where on earth would have been the adventure in that?
After a wet and windy voyage… the Shaolin dropped anchor just offshore from the island and in a major display of unparalleled efficiency… cast crew and equipment [the full catastrophe] were ferried across by dinghy to the beach where filming began in earnest.
The full catastrophe
Fortunately or [unfortunately]… it rained lightly on and off all day which kept the beach either humid and wet… or humid and downright hot. But at least we weren’t in full sun. Either way it was humid… and some of us seriously needed a hair straightener by about mid morning but without 240v mains power we soon realised we were not going to have our curls coiffed any time soon.
Ohh shoot…
So it was back to bare basics… singlets sarongs and barefeet… hair wild and windswept as we were filmed strolling up and down the beach… gazing out to sea from under a colorful umbrella… and being interviewed pretending to have just stepped excitedly off an imaginary flight from Bali with a total stranger we had only just met. It sounds easy. Let me tell you it’s not!
Lovely light on Low Isle
But it was a lot of fun.
and a lot of hard work… Grin.
And I met and spoke with a lot of different people about a lot of interesting things.
Debbie & Jeannie [sitting around on a coconut]
I met a woman with a profound fear of water… who would never have taken the assignment had she known she would have to be surrounded by so much of it. Once there and confronted with the situation… she realised it was meant to be. [Incidental to the day those present were privileged to witness her metamorphosis through fear toward empowered sea mariner!] I got talking to her and learned she was an artist, actor, costumier, healer and counsellor who had an active interest in the field of Emotional Freedom Technique which is something I have been studying. I wrote about it recently here under Blocks Blanks and Barriers.
Back at Four Mile Beach Port Douglas
I also met a great couple [I had not known before] and spoke at length with them on the boat coming back. I casually mentioned that I had been out at Ellis Beach the previous Sunday setting up to paint and taking photographs and how windy it had been. I wrote about it here The Bright Side.
She shot me an astonished look and said
“Hey… I think we saw you! We were driving back from Port Douglas and saw you setting up your easel and thought… how nice… someone’s painting on the beach!”
Almost too much serendipity for one day! (((chuckles)))
a couple of roasted almonds on the way home
