Brooke Forbes

Red dirt it hurts, through your teeth, having breathed it in, unknowingly, when surveying the lands of Mparntwe. The residue gathers and lines the edge of your teeth, and like little castles they start to crumble. Shifting sands, you think, will be my both my beginning and my end.

And these sands are sparse and unrelenting, dry like snake skins left in the sun, dry like flour puffs, dry like tin sheds in summer, dry like the back of your knees when frightened by a lingering ghost.  

I think about the shifting sands beneath by feet constantly, and how the sand shapes movement and moments; life and loveliness; purpose and promise.

Experience is futile wonder – full of promise one moment and bleakness the next.

You cannot feel the pressure of a bursting river bank, without first experiencing the length of a long dry. That moment of relief and joy cannot come from a fleeting visit, a charter bus trip or one-day stop over to Uluru – check out the West Macs, check out the East Macs, try not to get stuck in the Gap.

I ponder this as I leave my city life behind and slowly involve myself in desert hub. What layers can I shed, like that dry old snake? What changes can I evoke quietly and slowly? What changes will happen violently and suddenly? Will I be lost in the metamorphosis of it all and crumble, too, like red dirt, to a ground that never stops shifting.