Growing up in the Seattle area, spring is the slightly warmer version of the wet and chilly normal but with added drowned earthworms on the sidewalk. It’s not uncommon to find northwestern children on summer vacation yet still fretting about of the possibility of the Independence day fireworks being rained out and wondering if the time will ever come where they can light their roman candles, spinning pagodas and sparklers. Obviously, since we were still stressing about rain in July, it’s a solid given that March/April/May were total soakers as usual.

Now New York is a different story. New York actually has spring and it’s GLORIOUS but notably fleeting. The issue you face there is that the island area of NY State faces a significant climatic variance from neighbouring communities across the Hudson river and above the southern tip of the Bronx. Just like how neighboring Oakland and SF have radically different weather, NYC and the adjacent area face a similar albeit slightly less drastic incongruence. The primary result of this meteorological discordancy in regards to spring is that it ends up being blink-and-you’ll-miss-it quick before BAM! Summer! Sweaty eyelids!
The ridiculously brief spring season was clearly illustrated to me during my first year living in Brooklyn. I moved to the city mid-winter and was anxiously awaiting the first non rain-out spring of my life. I was surprised to find that I had to wait quite a while, and on the last Sunday of April it snowed one final time. Less than three weeks later however, it was 90º and stayed that way. Did you see it? Spring? Yeah, it went that way.

So anyway, the result of my geographical locations through life means that even in my thirties, I’ve still never really experienced an undeniable springtime. You know, the cliché kind with rain, sun, cheeping birds, buds of flowers poking up through fresh earth and months of getting used to it by frolicing, picnicking and kite-flying or whatever it is people do in places with spring. I’m not complaining, I don’t feel like I’ve been given the short shrift on weather experiences that people should have – no, that goes to the millions of adult Australians who still have never seen snow. That said, I certainly wouldn’t spit on living through an awesome cartoon spring.

So Brisbane. I never for a moment expected Brisbane to have spring. One, obviously because I don’t really acknowledge spring’s existence in general; two, it’s August and even though I now live in the southern hemisphere my internal calendar is all screwed up and I still have ingrained expectations; lastly three, this is the sub-tropics! We’re less than a day’s drive to the equatorial zone! What do we need Spring for? BRING ON THE SUMMER!
This morning I spent a not-insignificant amount of time grumping around about the “manic” weather. One day it’s gorgeous and sunny, the next raining as if it wasn’t aware that excuse me, don’t you know we’re in a drought? AND I’m trying to job hunt here? Sheesh!
I looked up the weather forecast and came upon a video of a local newstation’s weather broadcast. While I was happy to hear the weatherman proclaim a bright sunny weekend ahead, I’m sure you can understand the jolt of surprise I felt when I heard his statement of this being a typical spring in here in Queensland and that it’s sticking around for a couple more months before the long subtropical summer kicks back in.

So it seems it’s finally springtime in my life, let the picnicking begin!

What’s your favorite season?

We may be moving into winter, but someone forgot to tell the completely overloaded passionfruit vine in my driveway.

I lost track an hour ago of what number attempt this is.

I have a secret to tell, except it’s not very secret, you’ve known it all along.
I’m no good at subterfuge and this weighs on my heart. I cannot continue this dishonesty, I cannot continue repeating the same lie, hoping that one day I’ll wake up to find it true.

I’m not enjoying the weather and the break from a dizzy pace, that’s just the best thing I can think to say. The thing I think you might believe.
I actually love seasons and I love being among people with drive.

It’s been five months of summer and it’s really gotten old. This version of Autumn has no colored leaves, scarves, tea or soup. It does have 90 degree days, bare feet and beds bereft of blankets just like the summer and spring prior. It’s not nice anymore, now it’s just unbalanced.
Life here moves glacially but I don’t find mellow or calm, I see instead complacency, boredom, and a critical shortage of passion.
I feel trapped in your crappy transit system and ridiculous rental and food prices. Most of all, I hate feeling loud and obnoxious for simply having the occasional opinion.

This is a city that puts people in their places and I won’t take it. I know this means I’ll never fit here.
I refuse to doubt myself on the basis of small-town invalidation. There is very likely talk behind closed doors but I don’t care. I’m still free to cop to the truth.

A part of me aches when admitting these secrets.
I know that home is tangled with heart and self and I grieve that my admission could hurt even a tiny corner of the feelings of friends here.
You know that this is MY truth right?

Each bird likes it’s own nest best.

Don’t ask me what I think of Brisbane if you don’t want to hear my answer. I’m done talking about the weather.

Because I may be wrong, but I’m pretty sure I just heard a click.
A soft subtle one that came in through the window on a breeze with a cool thread running through it.

This time last year it was winter in my life. February in New York City. A totally brutal month as the novelty of winter clothing and snow and staying home is gone and everyone wants it to just damn end so we can get on with our lives.
The seasons that followed unsurprisingly were spring, summer and autumn. But then we got on an airplane and suddenly it was summer again.

Now though?
I could easily be mistaken having no frame of reference for this part of the world, but as of today, I think it just might be autumn.

I’ve been told that I’m an “old soul” because my karma tends to be REALLY quick. For example, I once absentmindedly walked out of a newstand with a magazine under my arm, realized a block later that I stole it and promptly dropped the damn thing in a puddle.

I have endless stories that parallel that one.
It’s almost a joke in my life that if I screw up, something will fall from the sky and straight onto my head moments later. Because I suffer from a ridiculous quickness of karma, I’ve found myself questioning what I did anytime something absurdly unfortunate happens. Usually, I can identify something I said, did, didn’t do or whatever that will give further weight to ‘My life is a slapstick comedy for the powers that be’ theory.

This time? This time I have no idea what I did or said or who I pissed off.

Internet, the last 24 hours of my life has been held an impressive array of disgusting insects invading my personal space.

It all started last night. The Mister and I were both feeling a little crappy so we went to bed early.
As usual, despite being totally wiped out I couldn’t fall asleep.
I went for my usual method of dealing with insomnia which essentially entails pretending to be asleep and hoping sleep will happen. As is completely normal it wasn’t working.
I peeked an eye open just as a huge cockroach walked past my nose and over the rise of my pillow.
I spazzed out and jerked upright but managed not to scream bloody murder.
I knew the Mister was desperate for sleep and I try to be considerate of sleep needs since I’m pretty desperate for the stuff myself.
I considered turning on lights to seek the beast out, but I knew that really, it’s pointless. It’s midsummer in the tropics. We sleep with our windows open because it’s really hot. The roaches here? They ALL fly.
The occasional bug is a part of life and waking up my grumbly partner just as he’s fallen asleep to swat at a bug that will only fly out the window in four seconds wasn’t reason enough to risk the argument potential.

I decided to wait his dastardly grossness out from the comfort of the living room while complaining to twitter.
The moment I hit send on my bit of breaking bug-on-pillow-OMFG news, a hand-sized moth flew in the window and straight into my hair.
It was at this point that I decided I was never sleeping again.

Actually, that’s not true. I had to go back to bed, I was expected to get up early to pick up a car the Mister and I were borrowing the next day.
My darling husband doesn’t drive so facing a situation where I would be expected to operate a manual transmission with my left hand whilst driving the car on the opposite side of the road with added sleep deprivation? yeah, no thanks.
Also, all sorts of bugs were getting really excited about hanging out with me in the only lit room in the house and I decided I’d rather just sit in the dark and convince myself that roach already flew out the window, or into the kitchen or somewhere more interesting to roaches than MY FUCKING PILLOW.

Ok this is enough bug story right? Nobody wants to hear bug stories because bugs are gross and nothing sucks more than having to imagine a three-inch cockroach on your pillow.
So how about 300 jumbo-sized larvae all over your kitchen, hallway, and living room floor instead?

BECAUSE GUESS WHAT WE FOUND WHEN WE WOKE UP???

Holy shit internet, do you have any idea how awesome it is when you wake up, think “gee, the floor sure is dirty, I’m gonna sweep it before I even make coffee or, I dunno, put on shoes” sweep half the floor and realize wait. We’re not slobs leaving crumbs all over the floor, those are GIANT MAGGOTS.

NIGHTMARES! NIGHTMARES! NIGHTMARES!

Thankfully, our mango-stealing landlord was hanging around and I hysterically flagged him away from his trash can arranging chores to have him DO SOMETHING about the atrocity that is our apartment, that, by the way I’m happy to move out of, like RIGHT FUCKING NOW.

He came in and declared the slinking vileness (these suckers could really haul ass!) as butterfly larvae due to their large size and relatively small numbers, went to the corner shop and brought us back a jumbo spray bottle of Raid.

Now internet, I’m a vegetarian. I was vegan for over a decade.
I eat largely organic and do most of my household cleaning with baking soda, vinegar and elbow grease.
When I buy a six-pack of rootbeer, I don’t just clip the bird-strangler, I shred the thing into tons of little splintery bits.
I grew up reading Ranger Rick and hugging trees and feeding birds in the winter.

But this morning, when I saw my landlord hand my husband a jumbo bottle of harsh toxic chemicals I was OVER-FUCKING-JOYED.
The Mister gave the house a thorough once-over with deadly poisons that will undoubtedly shorten my lifespan and affect the fertility of our grandchildren but at that moment? Whatever.

We dealt with the wreckage and hightailed it outta the city for a day trip.

Obviously, I need to make some amends. Somewhere along the way, I snapped at someone and they gave me an insect hex.
Further proof (like you need more): look who JUST came loudly stumbling in the door to hang out with my husband’s old adidas slides?

(Internet, Mantis. Mantis, Internet.)

So seriously dudes, I’m WIDE OPEN to suggestions. Do I dose up with more poison? Apologize to the universe for some bug-related sin I didn’t know I committed?
The only thing I can think of that I screwed up on recently was leaving our laundry on the line during a torrential downpour, but I don’t see how that would affect the world of insects.

When will this karmic debt be fully repaid? How many more bugs must fly in my hair? PLEASE MAKE IT STOP.

Better. It’s getting better.

Today I read a blog post written by an Australian recently moved to NYC.
She’s obviously having a difficult time. Stuggling with money, struggling with work, and scraping by in a city and culture so similar to her own yet so totally foreign in very subtle and surprising ways.

Oh yes, I know that story.

Reading her words, I felt for her.
I left her a comment with some suggestions from my experience, and hopefully she finds something in them.
But it’s not just about tips on how to find a decent job or what metrocard to buy, it’s about being new and feeling frustrated that everyone ELSE has it figured out and is making it work, why can’t I?
I felt for her because I’m living it too.
It was only this week that I figured out which mass-transit card to buy here.

I’m working now and it’s caused an enormous difference in my outlook.
I’m not sure if that’s due to my lessened availability of time with which to fret, or simply the comfort of a routine, but it’s working and I don’t really care why. Things are getting better for me and I’ll take it no questions asked.

The summer is peaking, exploding with color and life.
I’ve really only made one friend so far but she’s totally awesome and I’m lucky to know her.
I will never experience today again so for now, screw my train ticket. I don’t care that I bought the less-than-best option, because I figured it out, the world is alive in acid-bright color and things are getting better.

Internet, meet Ned.

Ned is a blue-tongue lizard that lives under my house and occasionally suns himself on the cement walk at the base of my porch.
Ned is a big guy, thicker than my wrist and 14″/35cm long. According to Wikipedia, he’s at the top of his class size-wise.

I met Ned myself for the first time the other day when I burst out of the house to check out an unfamiliar bird that I noticed through the window crash-landing into our frangipani tree.
I got about halfway down the porch, saw him, screamed and flew straight back up up the stairs.

Ned was not impressed with my display and continued to sit on the path, flicking his bright blue tongue around and relaxing in general.

Of course moments later the Mister came outside to see what the fuss was about, saw Ned and explained to me that he was harmless despite his giant-snake-like looks.

Since our fateful introduction, I’ve seen Ned nearly every day. Sometimes over by the garbage cans or in the pile of fence alongside the house, but mostly hanging out at the bottom of our steps, waiting for me to come out so I can get a start and he can smirk to himself that I’m such a sucker.

Feel free to laugh at me, but until recently I didn’t know that passion fruit was an actual fruit and not just a flavor.
Basically I always thought it was an invented fancy name for generic red.
This candy has PASSION! It must be valuable and exotic!

Turns out, whoops! it’s a real fruit! An incredibly delicious fruit that I will only consume in smoothie form because it’s edible guts resemble snot both in texture and color.

I found the one above growing on the fence next to our driveway.
My mind is blown that I live in a place where various tropical fruits grow as weeds in my yard.

Also, just as I wrote that last sentence, a huge flock of Sulphur-Crested Cockatoos flew by just to drive the point home.
Because, you know, the palm trees, mangoes, sunlight, and sweltering february didn’t get the job done.

Earlier today, between bursts of pounding rainfall, I went on a walk and found an abandoned house that’s being quite aggressively reclaimed by nature.

I have fantasies of being more adventuresome and finding my way inside empty houses like this. When I circled the building taking photos, I came across a low window with the sash raised and the protective plywood knocked out.
I must admit, I was temped.

My intuition told me no though, and I didn’t climb through

As I was leaving, I noticed that the property line was littered with beer bottles, solvent containers and syringe caps.

I guess being a scaredy-cat isn’t always the worst thing.

Months ago, when I wrote my reflections on New York and leaving it, I intended to also publish my thoughts about moving to Brisbane. I’m glad I didn’t. I want to say that my expectations for Brisbane were wrong, but that’s a simplification and doesn’t do the city justice.

As I assume y’all know, I’m A’murrricun. My husband is ‘Strayan.
We moved to Australia and specifically, to Brisbane for a number of reasons. Immigration hurdles, a fantastic career opportunity for him, weather and allergy issues, access to affordable/FREE healthcare, a desire to change the pace of our lives for a moment all mixed with myriad other issues and led us to where we stand.

We’ve had many people Australian and American alike ask, Why Brisbane?
For those of you not familiar with the cultural geography of Australia, Brisbane is largely regarded as not a city but a big country town. In many ways, calling it that is a gross insult. Brisbane is home to millions, has an impressive and beautiful inner-city skyline, mass transit, and a world class Contemporary Art institution. The Queensland Performing Arts Center is currently hosting a production I read rave reviews for in New York just a couple months ago.
In some ways though, the reputation is earned. There isn’t much in terms of non-state sponsored culture here, my guess, because the infrastructure doesn’t exist. There IS mass transit, but it’s very expensive, has an incredibly complex and confusing fare/zone system, and is pretty much completely aimed at shuttling commuters from the deep burbs into the city core and not at all for moving city dwellers between it’s own neighborhoods. Rent is expensive (Brisbane monthly rent savings over NYC:$14) and there aren’t a lot of the types of businesses that attract creative culture.
The city itself appears to me as pretty progressive, healthy, and economically robust, but many of the nearby small towns and suburbs are plagued with severe poverty, drug use and racism.

To get back to answering the question, our choice of Brisbane boiled down to a job.
The Mister was offered the opportunity to work on a year-long project that culminates in an amazing event. It’s something he’s incredibly excited to work on and it brings together two of his seemingly disparate passions.
There was no way we would say no to this project if that meant a year in Brisbane, Detroit, or even Timbuktu. It’s that important.

Life here is and yet isn’t what I expected. Nobody knows what living in a new city is going to be like, and many random factors contribute to your level of contentedness in a place.
The Mister and I chose our home and neighborhood here in Brisbane with our Williamsburg, Brooklyn lifestyle in mind. We wanted good coffee, friendly neighborhood bars, sidewalk cafes, and green grocers. We wanted well-stocked newsstands and a place to buy really fresh seafood. We wanted to be close enough to everything that our lack of a vehicle wouldn’t feel like a deprivation.
We got all of those things, but rapidly discovered that many of our Brooklyn requirements were unnecessary in Brisbane. Life here is different, and our so are our needs.

The existence we’ve put together here has given us many unexpected rewards. I can’t say that I’m having any problem adjusting to the weather. Shorts and flipflops in January is a welcome departure from the black slush with mixed garbage reality of New York winter.
I suppose it’s no surprise to most that food in Queensland is incredible. Our proximity to farmland and the sea is reflected nightly in our dinners, 90% of which we cook at home.
The air here is clean and smells like frangipani and mangoes. We wake up to the sound of the ravens arguing and mynas singing instead of the impatient honking of traffic-snarled drivers on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.
I’ve started using the library again and I make the bed every day not because I’m forcing myself to do it, but because I just do.
Although we’re technically poorer here than we ever were living in New York, we are richer in so many ways.

These days, I don’t know where home is.
I can see that Brisbane, despite it’s beauty is not it. A tiny three bedroom apartment is waiting for our arrival back in New York, but perhaps the west coast of the US with it’s proximity to my family would be better.
Maybe it’s foolish to leave a country with universal medicine and an easy way of life, perhaps Sydney or Melbourne would fill our needs.
It could be that our future is somewhere else completely. Europe is an option as I had the foresight to pick a man with EU citizenship, but both of us having tasted the difficulty of adjusting to another English-speaking culture have no veil of illusion about the glamour of living in Germany or France. It could be awesome, but it would definitely be difficult as we’re both monolingual.

This story is not fully written. We’ve only been here a short time, and I know that my view will change greatly when I find employment and make a couple more friends.
Those things take time but luckily, I have patience.