I keep having this recurring dream where I’m walking ocean side, along some craggy coast around sunset. The sun’s rays gleam out from behind fluffy white clouds, glimmering on the the water’s surface. Much to my horror and delight, just as the sun sinks into the horizon, the tide creeps in on me, at first slow, but then faster and faster. Suddenly I’m engulfed in mother ocean’s relentless tides, helpless and futile against the waves’ pull. Once again I’m carried out to sea.
It sounds nightmarish, like a tsunami threatening to wash away the land and all that inhabit it, but somehow, as the tide rolls in every night in my dreams, I feel a strange, familiar comfort. I’m taken in by my curiosities of travel, the ocean and Australia.
I’m on holiday for one month in Australia, currently residing in Queensland. I’m already quite dreading planning my departure. To wake with the hot sun on my face, to have breakfast on the patio with the wild cockatoos and rainbow lorikeets, to run and hide from all the too-big spiders, to plan my next bushwalking adventure- it’s somehow all I’ve ever known. I can only hope that the chance to continue to explore here presents itself to me.
Is it enough to dream of places undiscovered? Can I sleep soundly knowing that I might not wake to see one-one thousandth of the natural mysteries of Queensland and New South Wales, much-less Australia’s entire east coast? The state between being awake and asleep, where nearly anything is possible, I imagine myself catching a nap under a palm tree on white silica sand beach somewhere near Fraser Island or the Whitsundays. I see myself, in an aerial view, facedown, back burning, snorkeling a colorful and pristine reef outside of Cairns. I watch myself dance salsa at a bar on a Friday with fellow travelers, laughing and making memories I might never know.
As I calm my thoughts and finally drift into sleep, it’s the promise of tomorrow’s adventures that keep my dream alive. During my slumber, I notice the sun dipping into the horizon, and watch the waves break as they come to carry me away once more.
Brave New World Traveler 