Hold on my heart

It was a normal Sunday - yet not a day to worship the sun.

The fifth day of winter, and I needed my coat. It's tropical here, and cold is scarce and usually early in the day.

I had work this morning, in a two-storey shop selling mid priced clothing, accessories and lingerie - in the middle of a dilapidated outdoor shopping mall currently undergoing renovations on one end. The end closest to the shop in which I work is mostly untouched, basically filled with derelict empty shop fronts that were prospering only 10 years ago.

On Sundays however, merchants and creative types set up their stalls along the uneven brick strip and offer lead lite wind chimes and savoury nuts or tie-died skirts from Bali. This is why I love working on Sundays. The markets are one of the most beautiful things in my town.

Personally, I don't really like the shop I work in. It is a dull chain store with too much room and not enough love. I sold about $400 worth of goods with an average sale of about $38.

I spent a fair amount of time looking out into the mall however. A duet of young men leaving their mid-twenties playing a set of mellow, Sunday-morning songs with a guitar each. One had a strap of bells tied to his right ankle, and banged a single bass drum with his left. After a while he played an enormous double bass, and a harmonica. I never was able to learn an instrument to the point where I was ever any good. I always pulled out, couldn't be bothered practising. I only wished I could play and instrument, I never actually enjoyed playing any of them. I played flute, piano, guitar - even recorder at school. Not a single one took my fancy. I wish I could find one because I love music, and this morning I found myself desperately envying those men.

Music for me is power. I could starve if I still had music - maybe for about 40 hours for World Vision (which I did, in fact, just last year). I have new music lately. Might I recommend Tame Impala's debut album "Innerspeaker". The whole album is bliss, their website describes it as "an explosive, cosmic wonderland of ecstatic harmony and perfectly accessible journeys into innerspace". Beautiful really, I love almost every track. I'm also "digging" (for all you cool cats out there, down with the lingo) the single "Telepathic Head" by Machine Translations. Oh very good indeed. I need to make a new CD to play at work to complete my Sundays.

So in the back of my mind went troubles and exams and loneliness. Time slows to half, crowds weave in and out through stalls - buying fruits, organic candles or $30 Chanel counterfeits. I absorb the Sunday atmosphere, on my break I listen to Eastern European music and wish I was in a market elsewhere. Our markets are small, they'll do for now. One day I will have a Sunday off, but I'll come down anyway and maybe buy "Dope Sope" or some Parmesan cashews. Hopefully when that day comes I'll have arms nice toned enough for a singlet, and abs fit enough to wear a long, hemp skirt around my hips. Then my Indian patchwork bag I bought from a stall at the Australian Italian Festival (ironically) slung across my body and a little Tame Impala in my ears and I might be in heaven.

A first public blog. All the best to you and your Sunday for reading.
Love Lucy

This is the markets. I work in the shop behind "Discount Jeans", the one with the grey sign that says "Barkins"

My friend tells me I look just like the woman buying fruit. Fancy that?