Happy, healthy, creative, joyous, surprising, peaceful new year!.
I’ve a private superstition that January foretells the year to come. Sometimes I can shape it. Sometimes I can’t.
This year, it shaped me, I hope.
I’ve been at Bundanon, the remarkable property on the Shoalhaven river that was gifted to the nation in 1993 by Arthur and Yvonne Boyd, for artists to come and work in solitude.
I’ve had two weeks here, with mostly only wombats and kangaroos for company.
Oh, and the characters in my next book…
It is set in two worlds, one red and one green, one then and one now. It is a story about stories and a search to find a home. Isn’t that what all stories are ultimately about?
And tonight is my last night in this breathtaking place. I’m so grateful for the time. The natural world is my paradise, as you know, and Bundanon has fed and fed me.
The cicadas…
the spiders…
the wrens…
the wagtails…
All of them colluding to take me deeper.
The river…
the rocks…
the ferns…
the gums…
Oh those gums, so varied and so true.
My saints, my markers…
Walking my way through and over this land, but being walked by it too.
The silence of the deep full moon night and the misty early mornings. The intense heat of the first week. The moist mildness of this second week. All, all…gifts. Reminders of the natural world and how it longs to support us if we will only give it time. If we will only pay attention…
I have produced so much more than I dared hope here. Can’t believe it really. And the miracle is that I get to return in April for a third week.
Tomorrow I leave, but I’m so grateful and amazed to have had this time, just as I am to wake each morning on this beautiful land. It has set me on track for the year, I hope.
May your year be fulfilling and may the way be clear.
May wonder be your default setting, every day.
Happy new(ish) year.
Buen camino.
Postscripts…
Here’s a link to a recent piece for Eureka Street. I feel pretty passionate about this one.
And if you’d like to get a feel for the studio space I was in at Bundanon, click on this link to watch a short video. I like the sentiment on that little heart!