Walkabout.

Did you ever see the movie Walkabout?  I did about five, six years ago.  It was during the summer when I worked picking blueberries with my boyfriend at the time, Chris.  Chris was tall and thin with blond hair and blue eyes.  Classic surfer dude type.

We lived way out in the middle of rural north Florida on a piece land owned by a state peace group, the Florida Coalition for Peace and Justice.  An old farmer donated the land which had been part of an old tree farm and they had just built a new community building out there.  Besides the new building, there was a falling down old cracker house with a wrap around porch where we made tie-dyed t-shirts and a double-wide trailer that served as an office and living quarters for the caretaker.  Which was Chris.  Another girl, --I think her name was Elena-- lived out there with us.  Besides taking care of the land, which involved keeping the tractor running, mowing the grass around the pecan trees and maintaining a languishing vegetable garden, we would work during the day on some nearby farms.  Picking blueberries, pruning pepper plants, potting caladiums.  And in the evenings we would rent movies from Joe's Movie Gallery in the stripmall in town.

Watching movies was about the only time we were ever inside that summer.  We showered outside.  We ate outside.  We slept outside in tents because it was cooler.  We had lots of sex outside.  We walked around naked outside.  One day a car pulled up before we could get our clothes on.  I think Elena talked to them.  They were the neighbors who were concerned about the heathen hippies who had moved in next door.  Eventually Chris made himself a sort of wrap around skirt to put on.  It was dark pink with lighter pink stars on it.  I still have some of the fabric.

I think I never was younger or healthier or more full of life than I was that summer.  Or maybe it just seems so to me tonight.  Hands working the bushes, picking delicate berries, $6 a bucket. The owner would come around in a golf cart to bring us drinks and sandwiches on white bread.  I remember burning my fingers on the haberno peppers at Farmer John's.  Eating raw corn still warm from the sun for the first time in my life.  And my friend Jimmy talking to me about philosophy while we potted thousands and thousands of caladiums.

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I am reading Talk Talk by T.C. Boyle (link leads to a good summary on Bookslut.com....here's a link to a review from Powell's which I'm not sure I agree with yet).

Comments

[Alison]

It sounds like a cool way to spend the summer, indeed.

[Mermade]

Whoa... what an amazing story. Classic summer love. Beautiful!