Annette Zapchenk Clarke

Story

Twenty years ago, in June of 1989, I stepped from the confines of a Continental Airlines flight onto the expansive shores of Australia. The journey had been long – drawn out from the basement bargain fare that took me from my homeland of Wisconsin to the mad rush of Chicago to the white sandy beaches of Hawaii over to the friendly isle of Fiji and onto the emerald valleys of New Zealand before my journey finally found its ways to the beautiful city of Melbourne.



In a way the length of the flight mirrored my anticipation and the patience I had to develop since the day I met the love of my life. Two years had passed since I first met Stewart on a crowded train platform in former Yugoslavia. Love letters from Cairo, Tel Aviv, London and Melbourne my only source of endurance since that meeting.

His letters were my source of nourishment. I waited impatiently for the mail to arrive and lived Stewart\’s excursions through his written conversations to me. Thin blue par avon letters decorated with foreign stamps and words of adulation and adventure. Talk of a wedding in Sydney Harbour only inflamed my romantic dreams and my desire to be with him.

It was an ardent love that impassioned me and released me from my own insecurities and fears – how would this fairy tale end? Although born on the south side of Chicago, I was raised as a country girl in the rolling green hills of Wisconsin – acres of pine and oak, cooling rivers, dairy cows and quarter horses, big red barns and fields of corn…… Regardless of my worries, freshly graduated from University and fuelled with a passionate love, my innocence and shyness put at bay, I followed my heart and endured a flight that took me to the other side of the world. I embraced the adventure, living off of my incredible emotions for Stewart.

I arrived in Melbourne the same time winter arrived and disembarked into wet and cold. The bleak weather did not phase me; I was floating on a rush of emotions. I immediately loved everything about the city, about Australia and about the people. Stewart\’s family and friends were very warm and welcoming and have become very dear to me over the years. A few months after my arrival we eventually took a trip to Sydney to visit this famous harbour. With one look of the beauty that surrounded me, I professed that should we ever get married this would definitely be the spot. It was everything Stewart had recounted in his letters. We looked out onto the water and saw a beautiful tall ship, built in the early 1900\’s, and claimed the sail boat as our floating chapel. A year later, after applying for permanent residency, we were married on the Solway Lass as she sailed gently past the Opera House.

We will be celebrating our 19th year of marriage this Spring, Melbourne has grown ten-fold since I arrived. My life here has been everything I\’d imagined it to be. My love for Stewart is stronger and comes from a deeper part of my being. Australia has been good to me. I owe her much to her ‘no worries, she\’ll be right’ philosophy, to her friendliness, to the opportunities she\’s given me to live out my dreams. As much as I miss my family and friends in the US, Australia has become my home.

Beograd Station

In a swarm of gypsies


I saw your face


Drunken soldiers danced and sang


– love songs resonated in foreign tongue

Through a thick haze of faces

your brown, absorbing eyes met mine

I melted, trembled from head to toe

Large robust women, with toothless smiles

held me up as I slivered through the mob to get to you

Friendly, inquisitive strangers reached out to touch my sun-lighten hair


but did not speak



I passed without notice

young men in long drab overcoats

– automatic rifles cradled in their arms

The greyness that hung over Belgrade,

like a thick woollen blanket, escaped me


The winter winds of January nipped at my face,


but I did not feel the cold


Floating on a rush of emotions

my heart opened wide


You spoke


My spirit smiled


Part of me, forever yours.

~14 January 1987

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