Sandy

Sandy

Lorraine Alexandra Dumont was a collage girl, lived an eclectic
cut-and-paste life. Brian didn't fit in, and so, of course, he did - at
first. He seemed romantic. He proposed under a palm tree.

Later the cracks showed. When he said, 'I can't stand Lorraine,' she
changed her name for him. Eventually he dried her up. So she asked
herself where she should go. The answer was staring her in the face as
she applied a lip salve in the loo. Where else but the deserts of the
world? A voyage of self-discovery, a pilgrimage - forty days and forty
nights. Clear skies. Cold by night and hot by day. The extremes would
force her out of herself, give her latitude to reflect. She returned to
the pub, where Brian was nursing his bitter. 'I'm away for a while,'
she said, and left. He swirled his Tetley's and gawped.

Due south first. The Kalahari. The name had always appealed. By night,
the stars were seasoned with lions' roars. By day, the
question-mark-horned springbok shimmered in the haze, counter-shading
flattening them into intangible cutouts. She was told that the oryx,
seen from the side, was the original unicorn, only here they called it
"the gemsbok", with a guttural "g".

In search of real gems, she ventured west, to the Skeleton Coast, but
the diamond zones were verboten. She travelled on, with memories of
geckoes licking their eyes clean, and barking at night, and elephants
on the beach, whales a stone's throw away.

In Death Valley she was proud to survive the highest temperatures she
would ever experience, and glad to leave.

She encountered no mystic Don Juan in New Mexico.

In Mongolia she sampled mares' milk in a yurt, and met the best
horsemen in the world. These nomads could break camp in an hour, but
carried a sense of permanence with them. Happy people in a barren land.
Gobi what you want to be.

In Dubai she was nauseated by the duty-frees, but met a fellow wanderer
as stunned as she. He had a week to blow and accompanied her to Yemen.
They found that camels were now for tourists only as they coughed in
the wake of four-wheel-drives.

And so to Australia, where Ayers Rock had waited patiently for her for
aeons. The power of it, looming on the horizon, shocked her. Aboriginal
grief brought her to her knees and she could not approach. Their pain
radiated from this red rock ridge and she despised her race. Then,
strangely, a peace stole upon her, and she was cleansed. She was not,
and would not be, guilty of her relatives' sins. For everyone is
related, but all are individual.

On the flight home she meditated:

- Unicorns exist, if you want them to.

- The right clothes can make you look slim.

- If you seek wealth you will not find it - you carry it with
you.

- Always keep your eyes clear.

- There are no gurus in human form, if not yourself.

- You cannot shoulder all the burdens of the world.

- She could love Brian, with all his limitations, but he was not for
her. She must set him free to find his own truth.

Home, she told him their relationship was dust, gave him her marching
orders and a picture: just deserts. (You might say he got his just
desserts.)

Sandy schools horses in the north-east of Scotland. Not far from where
she lives are the Sands of Forvie, the largest sand dune complex in
Europe. Her new boyfriend is a guitarist. His group? Ayers Rock.
They're thinking of renaming it Uluru.