I write in a new year, for some, of life. And today the searing heat has withdrawn back to its desert lair, and a cool breeze brings an aching beauty. My Professora has long returned from her journey to Goa and Mumbai, and there I was waiting for her at 6 in the morning, waiting at the waist high barrier facing the international arrival doors at Melbourne's International airport. A particular Australian ritual, I always feel this is, waiting for the landing of the big planes from London, Shanghai, Singapore, Malaysia, Beijing. Friends and lovers, children with balloons sitting on their fathers' shoulders, all looking up at the board of arrivals, and then settling in for the long wait as their expected one makes her way through customs, baggage retrieval. Four doors slide open first slowly as the first class passengers make their way through, perhaps looking a little less tired then the others to follow. For close to 21 hours most of the passengers have been sitting in cramped seats, breathing stale air, pushing the little plane on the seat screen in front of them over the international date line, through the Pacific skies. We do not know out of which door our expected one will come and so we watch each, heads turning, reunion dramas picking up speed. Young families with new babies, grandparents reaching over the barricade to touch their grandchild for the first time, children too impatient to wait for their parents to push the over laden baggage trolleys run ahead, stretching their legs and lungs on this their firm ground. This is no five hour Paris to New York trip, this is the arrival of the modern day clipper ships of the air--the big bellied Quantas life lines of Australia. I am pushed against the barrier, straining to catch sight of La Professora's hennaed head and after throngs have pushed through, I see her coming through the left hand door, and I squeal my delight like all the rest, she has made it home, she has endured. I push my way out to give someone else the room to wait and quickly get to her as she emerges into the main cavern of the airport. We run towards each other, and laughing, give each other a big wonderful lesbian kiss. She is tired, but she is home.