Captain Australia

I have my books
And my poetry to protect me
I am shielded in my armour
Hiding in my room safe within my womb
I touch no one and no one touches me
I am a rock, I am an island

And a rock feels no pain
And an island never cries

Simon & Garfunkel

The pulse oximeter on my finger was beeping. The screen on the small device flashed continuously.

“Mmm. That’s odd”, the nurse mumbled, fiddling around with the POx on my left hand.

“Let’s try again.”

I was lying on a heavy metal stretcher in the nurses’ room, staring at the white ceiling, and trying very hard not to get concerned about what the nurse had just said. I was way too tired to really care anyway.

“You have no pulse!” she declared, still trying to adjust the small machine on my middle finger, so it would pick up any form of vital sign.

That was indeed odd because as far as I was concerned, I still felt very much alive. Maybe feeling a little sleepy, but definitely not dead.

“Ah! There we go! It’s very low, but you do have a pulse!”

I feigned relief and smiled.

“It’s amazing you are even awake! Has it always been that low?”

Yup.

“Must be because you are a runner!”

I doubt it, but sure. Sounded better than basically being half-asleep all day.

“High-performing athletes often have a very low heart rate!” the nurse educated me.

Nope. I mean, yes – but I was not a high-performing athlete! Far from it. I just had a slow heart. Or none at all. That and very low blood pressure

“Oh my. Don’t you feel dizzy? You should have a glass of sparkly in the morning before you go to work.”

Though I liked the idea, I was not sure how my school would feel about that. Better dizzy than drunk!

And low iron. Or EYE-ON, as the lovely lady in the blue scrubs called it. Which was the reason why I was lying on this metal stretcher with a needle in my arm – my EYE-ON was extremely low, and I was about to receive an iron infusion. The magic potion. The super solution. The secret juice that was going to turn me into a half-marathon-running machine. And within the next three weeks, please – because that’s when my first race in Canberra was happening.

I had just run my personal best that morning, and I had hoped I could avoid this medical procedure. Not because I did not want it – I very much wanted all the iron I could get and all the energy that it would hopefully bring me. No, I had hoped to avoid the costs of getting this special treatment. Could have spent a weekend in the nicest spa in the Northern Beaches for the cost of the little cannula filled with brown liquid gold. I had hoped the nurse would look at my blood work results and tell me in a hushed voice:

“Darling – you don’t need this. You are fine! Why don’t you save yourself the money and just eat a bit of spinach!”

But no! Instead, after having looked at my file online, she got up and closed the door – almost as if to make sure I was not running away. After all, I was a high-performing athlete in her eyes.

I was going nowhere. And I was going to get some EYE-ON! Which would turn me into some kind of superhero instantly. Like Captain Australia. or something!

(Yes, there is a Captain Australia! I looked it up! And a Captain Britain, a Captain Brazil, a Captain America, of course, even a Captain Canada – all part of the All Captains Squad! Which Wolverine doesn’t want to be part of, because Captain America is bossy as usual. And then… oh, I’m sorry. I should focus! Eye on the eye-on!

Back to the iron! Iron is an important mineral that is involved in various bodily functions, including the transport of oxygen in the blood. No wonder I had felt so drained lately. That, or the fact that I basically had turned my entire life upside down – literally!

It turns out, iron is also the most abundant rock-forming element on earth, constituting about 5% of the earth’s crust. Iron is the reason for the earth’s magnetic field. And it is responsible for the red colour in many of Australia’s rocks and the deep red sands of the Australian desert.

Ever wondered why is Uluru red? For thousands of years, Uluru’s surface has been exposed to the water and the oxygen in the air. (That, and millions of flies!) This exposure has slowly decayed the minerals in the rock, causing them to oxidize. As a result, the iron minerals found inside the rock’s surface are rusting, which leads to its red colour. There you go!

And even sandstone, the principal rock type here in the Sydney Basin, is rich in iron. At times, you can see the iron oxide minerals shining through, having formed a vivid orange and brown circular pattern in the light brown stone. “Liesegang Banding” this internal rock feature of red swirls is called and can be found all along the coast of Sydney.

Next to twirling in circles, the local sandstone also likes to form a pattern of fine wavy lines created by layers and layers of sand deposited by a huge river system that came all the way from Antarctica 250 million years ago, when everything in Down Under was still connected.

And finally, there are these strange holes, also called honeycomb weathering. An attractive element of coastal exposure of the rock to water and wind occurs when the salt crystals from the ocean water break parts of the rock, creating a small hole that gets bigger as the process repeats itself again and again.

Sydney’s sandstone, called Hawkesbury Sandstone, can be found everywhere in the region (the name “Sydney Sandstone” had already been given to the other Sydney in Nova Scotia. Sorry, Captain Australia. This one went to Captain Canada!).

In nature, it underlines and shapes the scenery of vertical cliffs, plateau surfaces, and steep and boulder slopes. Sydney’s sandstone landscape is largely built from nutrient-poor, but iron-rich rock that supports the incredibly rich flora of the area. Many of the species found in the area are said to benefit from the buffering action of the iron against the phosphorous toxicity of the land. The diversity of sandstone heathlands and shrublands in places like Ku-rin-gai Chase right next to my school is only surpassed in the variety by biodiverse hotspots found in southwest West Australia.

In history, where sandstone has been important to the Indigenous people long before the settlers arrived, and many rock engravings can still be found in the area.

In the city, where sandstone has been the premium building stone from the early days of settlement in New South Wales to the present day. The city’s Town Hall, Cathedrals, art galleries, museums and schools are made of this iron- and quartz-rich rock. It is the rock that built The Rocks!

On his well-toned chest, Captain Australia wears the Southern Cross – a radiant star group that appears in the dream stories of the Aboriginals and helped early sailors find their way. The 5 stars were useful nighttime companions to all explorers and travellers.

Last night, after my iron infusion and a big dinner of hamburger and Coke (doctor’s order), I was sitting at the beach, waiting for the supplement to do its job. The last couple of weeks had been hard – the end of a long term, parent interviews, accreditation and taxes, the occasional moment of feeling homesick – and I was waiting for that additional energy to surge through my veins. For my muscles to bulge just like Captain A’s, for those guiding stars to appear and show me the way. But nothing happened, other than my stomach making funny gurgling sounds.

But as I looked up, there it was – the Southern Cross! At least, I think it was because I’m not very good at recognizing star constellations. And while I realized that it may take a few more weeks for the infusion to kick in and my energy to surge, I was having my own little superhero moment right there and then, on the dark deserted beach. Surrounded by the sandstone of the headlands, the guiding stars above me, and heaps of smelly iron-rich seaweed in front of me, I was getting the energy I needed to get up and go on. At least until the EYE-ON would kick in!

Cheers

• https://www.ga.gov.au/education/classroom-resources/minerals-energy/australian-mineral-facts/iron
• https://www.nationalrockgarden.com.au/rock-collection/hawkesbury-sandstone/