I can describe my body, its white, mottled exterior, dented by accidents and surgery, strong in places, soft in others.

The toenails, decorated pink, by a sweet, sweet woman who fed me tea and closed the shop door against the Sydney winter’s cold as my chest heaved and coughed with flu.

The knees, scared and purplish from a carefree childhood, knees knocked, scraped, abused over gravel roads, off bikes, a misjudged jump over that fence when I ran from the bucking horse.

The hands – once fine-fingered and long, a musician’s hands, my Granny admired – now broad and flat from work and age.

The eyes – blue like my mother’s, blue like my father’s and sister’s, which change shade as my health soars or declines.

The arms – broader than I’d like them to be, and strong in a swimmer’s lane – cutting a wake with steady freestyle strokes in summer.

The mouth, ready to smile, ready to frown, ready to laugh and shout and cry and kiss.

This is my body, in its imperfect soft-hard completeness. It is a landscape. And it is a vehicle.

To the bubbly slosh and slap of waves on a hot summer’s day.

To the trudge-sprint to work, Monday to Friday, over hard city scapes and past strangers’ faces, closed against the chill and other commuters.

To the pink velvet couch with too many throw cushions and the remote and Netflix and the chocolate on the floor.

To the warmth of her, the taste of her, her eyes, face, particular scent that’s like no one else, her own landscape.

To the airport, to the sea port, to the mountain top, to the bottom of the sea.

To a bricked seat across from a green Tuscan hill, sun on one foot, a fly on one leg, my body; a landscape, a vehicle, a destination.