Lutruwita.
Here I am, in Nipaluna (Hobart, Tasmania). Time spent in Ireland is fading, and missed. Will I return? I mull over the prospect and remain in stasis. Does becoming older deplete capacity for action? Perhaps. But the desire to be there continues, so does memory.
The steady blur of drought continues in Lutruwita while folk in Queensland and New South Wales fling their sodden selves at the sun, saw up broken trees and shout at insurance companies. The floods (and winds) are retreating, for now.
Is the planet listening? Are its caretakers?
This blog has been recessed, dropped into oblivion – except in my mind – and revives now almost like a redress, as if my small world awaits reinvention.
I write therefore I am? No. i am therefore i am. [ ] and …
Yesterday, I was moved – emotionally charged more likely – by Quinn Thomson’s extraordinary Swansong concert, as they prepare to transform their spine-tingling soprano notes to another voice. And the night before another event: ‘country music’ with Kasey Chambers – icon of Aussie ‘back-road’ music – and her band. And a few days earlier: the electronic and piano creative phenomenon Nils Frahm. What contrast, and yet, so much love in each room for all three performers; and, from each of them, love of where they are, who they are, who they are with, and of each place. The word ‘diversity’ feels overdone in these times; but until I find a worthwhile substitute, it’ll do for underwriting hope for acknowledgement of all that’s good and honest, and imbued with kindness, integrity, hopefulness and inclusion.
Place. Where we are and who we are in it? Right there. Right here, now.
A native hen – a flightless rail –gathers her chicks into a pile on the verge of the path beside the Hobart rivulet. A male hen startles with its warning honk as I pass with the dog. I apologise, keep the dog on a tight lead, walk quickly on. A wallaby dashes off at a glance from the dog and to the blare of a crackle (the group noun!) of white cockatoos. They cluster in a eucalypt canopy until one disturbs by its departure and they all scream off towards the city. These birds are novel in the valley, incessantly flapping and raucous. Where have they come from? Why? But my questions soften when I hear today that flocks of white corellas in New South Wales have been falling from the sky, poisoned.
At the river, a platypus scrabbles about in the bank. People gather to watch, film its actions, chatter. Only one platypus today. More than one is a ‘paddle’ of platypus. My neighbour reports she saw seven in one day, all solitary. Do they ever settle for a convention? How protected are they, despite Council’s efforts to promote their habitat to locals and tourists?
Last weekend – extended by a public holiday – a spot on the East Coast of Lutruwita became ‘my place’, thanks to a friend’s shed. Four days of solitude (with the company of Juni the whippet), beach walks and swims, painting, cooking, playing music…. Rejuvenation without driving, or the necessary appointments that seem to clog propensity for deep awareness. Quietness, solitude, occasional shared meals; and listening to trees in the wind and to birds reinventing song when they felt like it. Magpies, miners, crows, parrots. Solo, and in twos and threes.
I didn’t see the big snake on the path to the beach sighted the day before by my host, nor the massive shark reported after our swim on the hottest day. I think about the warming east coast current, the demise of kelp forests, the falling corellas and the frail platypus populations. Our future. More sharks, snakes, fires, floods? I’d better learn to honk like the native hen. [ ] …