Northern Rivers Winter

Home is where the hearth is, home is where the heart is, wherever I lay my hat that’s my home, and John Steinbeck said that home is “where I keep my books”.

I have found a home in Northern NSW for six weeks, and have settled right in. My clothes are packed on the shelves the owners of the house left empty for me, and my food is in a drawer emptied for me too. I’ve made an office for myself next to the fireplace; my only requirements for this home being a fireplace and nature's embrace. 

The peeling outside table has migrated inside, looking out to the northside of the deck, into the forest of tall gumtrees, bracken ferns and ubiquitous camphor laurel trees. This morning a young kookaburra alighted on the branch of a dying camphor tree, directly in the center of the big glass sliding door in front of me. Laughter, joy, they represent and remind one.

I’ve been thinking what I should write for my blog, how I should update it. I notice the writing is far more personal, introspective these Australian days, way less gritty than when I was in Africa. A little embarrassing, but tracking the journey nonetheless. There is less external tension here, at least for me, Australia is so much easier to navigate than Africa, perhaps simply because I’ve been here for over ten years and am habituated to its ways. And I'm learning about how to articulate my journey, without detailing my internal processing, which could be very tedious for readers.

I wrote in my journal a few days ago, “I couldn’t hear myself tell my story one more time. By yesterday, it was enough. The hang-dog feel of things going wrong, getting bent out of shape, even giving it the bland corporate packaging of a life having “a set-back” had started to grate on me.

Time to tell the story differently then.

A week ago, a long drive and a slow day in the country unfolded on Sunday, visiting my friends, the fabulous elders M and B, who live an hour and a half from Melbourne in dry Australian country. The magnificent old gumtrees at their gate are sentries, old ladies, observing the comings and goings of those who visit The Clan. When I returned to Melbourne at the end of the day, it occurred to me that I could simply wait, like those trees, I could be patient and wait for the seeds that I have planted to germinate. I don’t have to throw it all out in the quest for an immediate solution.

You see, as my week in Melbourne got a bit easier, I could take some distance from the incessant distress playing out in my head, the story of not having a home, not knowing which continent to live on, what work to pursue that doesn’t eat me alive. A temporary solution of three dvd’s, a packet of lollies and nine cups of rooibos tea allowed the two day headache to lift.

Images of Africa had started to rise up again. Just flashes of scenes, nothing exotic, like driving to the supermarket or the post office with my mum through Irene near Pretoria, which behind  and beside its genteel country persona sits the dryness of the exhausted grasslands, who witness the tardy creations that the humans bring to form, the second-hand shops with lurid signs, mechanics’ garages shrouded in grease and toil and the promise of emptying your wallet. Nothing built for the sake of beauty, all for function, dominance, visibility, access, nothing built to serve our delicate senses. A creeper spread its suckers all over a bulky concrete pedestrian bridge to the station, forming delicate patterns and covering over the brutality of purpose.

On the way to Pretoria, a four or six lane roadway carves a nature reserve, where late last year a small bush burst forth with clusters of pink and purple blooms, painting the rusting hills with sweeps of colour.

Amidst the brutality of Gauteng, nature seems to slip through. I wonder which plants quietly rise in the baby farms in Nigeria that my friend told me about, the places where women give birth and hand their babies over for $100 to be trafficked?

So during the last week in Preston, in the north of Melbourne, I slept on a single mattress on the floor of my good friend K’s spare room, my generous, quiet friend. I looked forward to leaving for  Byron Bay's soft light and vegetation bursting out of its skin, to stay in this house which I rented in a fit of burnout and distress about what my life had become.  I was trying to take steps to get myself out of the therapeutic work I've been doing, counselling and running workshops, but whilst in Melbourne, I met with two people from a program that is helping me with my finances, and it became clear that I need to keep working. That there is no magic cure. That there is sensible, responsible, and that loving what you do and doing what you love is something you build into, grow into. My plan is to use the time in Byron to write, to spend some time taking care of admin – tax, creating new business opportunities, setting income generating activities up, and to walk on the beach. I’m so fortunate to be here in Australia and to be supported in getting my survival stuff in order.

So what are the blessings of my circumstances? I perceive suffering and hardship in not having a home, but I get to have intimate conversations with my friends, lots of closeness, not have to take full responsibility for the lease or the house, I get to be free and move around a lot. And I get space .. lots of it.

Off Chapel St, Prahran, Melbourne

One of my favourite buildings in Swanston St, Melbourne

Today is Saturday in my beloved Mullumbimby, home of six weeks. A rarity, it has no traffic light and only recently got a traffic circle.  Slow and colourful, it is a haven for old hippies and freaks, spaced out meditators and rainbow people. There are a few old farmers too, and a fusty RSL that no doubt has cheap beer and some kind of schnitzel.

I am impressed with myself for this gift of six weeks of rural bliss - impressed as my default position is "workaholic". I can’t tell you how lovely the house is; the smell of the western cedar they used to build it, the orange, lemon and grapefruit trees dripping fruit, the vegetable garden sprouting a variety of lettuces. How much I enjoy the rhythm of setting the fire, scrunching old newspaper, gathering kindling, lighting and tending it, carting wood around and finally sinking back into the beanbag to watch the patterns in the flames.

M came to deliver firewood yesterday, 1.6 cubic meters to be precise, or a ute-load. I stayed to talk with him whilst he unloaded it, threw the chunks of ironbark off the back of the vehicle. His shins were scarred, knees too. He gave me detailed advice on how to build a fire, how to make a good one, the kindling and its different sizes, that it needs air, and that a glass of red should accompany the process so that you can be still and keep an eye on the embers forming.

I bought a new axe yesterday, a little one, a tomahawk I believe its called, so that I can split the logs into kindling. I tried this morning, and it feels far too brutal for me and the wood is so hard. I'm out of touch with that rugged side of me, that loves working the land, brush-cutting, mowing, mulching. I’m feeling delicate, and I need a man to do this work. Perhaps my ex, perhaps a new friend, lets see who comes into my life who would love to yield the axe!

So now I have space to write, space to ponder and meditate, space to walk on the beach which is ten minutes drive away. Its lovely and quiet, and we’re due for some serious weather in the next few days, a lot of rain and possibly flooding. I have supplies ready – kindling, firelighters, food, matches, wine, books, music.

And the good news is that there is a possibility of funding for the project in South Africa. Now, it is a matter of deciding whether or not I want to pursue it.Its something to weigh up, as I feel into what I would like my life to be, not what I think it should be.

I’ll leave it at that, and close with a picture of my desk, up here in Mullumbimby, NSW.