Good morning, good evening, good day to you, wherever you may be. The video above involves my feet, the wharf and salty Birrarung (read on). It’s my day off (paid) work today. This morning while I’ve been running errands (read: getting a takeaway coffee) and dropping the kids at school I’ve been listening to this Angus and Julia Stone album on CD which I’ve owned for 14 years; there are a few bumps, skips and scratches. I’m sitting at my desk now and I’m about to begin a two hour block of uni work1 using the pomodoro technique which I find helps me focus more and faff less. After that I have to pick up one of my daughters early from school for an appointment, which will flow into collecting the others from my sister’s, sport drops offs and pick ups, dinner prep and so on. Tonight we’re having this, but I’m going to use a crumbled block of tofu instead of the mince and see what happens.
I found something recently that I wrote in 2020. It was about how living in lockdowns was teaching me about all the things I didn’t need, all the rushing that was unnecessary, how I was finding it (in that moment) to be a relief to have a break from the way we had been choosing to live2. A few years down the track, back in the trap of rushing and buying and stressing I needed that reminder, but still - and again - I find myself in a position where I am once again needing to pause time and question the daily choices we’re making and how we choose to spend our time. I’m probably erring on repeating myself but that seems to be how I live my life, how I write, how I understand the world: through a process of mapping my thoughts and ideas again and again and again as I hurtle through time3. In Here We Go Again, Julia Stone sings:
You know what they say
about getting older
It’s only a doorway away.
While I was contemplating this process of re-thinking, re-learning, re-finding, re-imagining, I came across this short video (below) on Instagram about understanding landscape and place by connecting with the same environment over and over again. I shared this in Things that are good #4 the other week but simply have to share it again here (also, I promised I would). Watching this video I was immediately struck by the memory of what two years of enforced lockdowns had allowed me: it created the chance to feel connection to this place I live, by attending to it intimately day after day, season after season, with the volume turned down on other stimuli. Everything was stripped back.
One evening last week I heard the rain on the roof and the next day I went outside on my lunch break to push a seed into the damp earth with my thumb. My garden is greener and after a few years of paying more careful attention to the seasons, the next phase of spring feels familiar to me here.
Then, on Friday I visited the PhD exhibition of my friend
(refer to video up the top, outside the exhibition space seeing a different side of the river I feel so familiar with) and again was struck by the way in which we know (or don’t know) landscape and the ways in which it is possible to build (or violate) a relationship with the places we live.Christine’s work examines the ways Birrarung/the Yarra River has been used and manipulated since colonisation in ways that could be considered violent and exploitative, and her work attempts to unlearn settler colonial representations of Birrarung. I always find it stimulating to meet new ideas or different ways of thinking and presenting history, stories, narratives. Christine’s exhibition is a beautifully researched assemblage of photography, archival material, video, rock and essay. Her work will continue to contribute towards my deepening connection with the river, and better understanding its colonised history and my place amongst it all as I let her ideas settle in my mind over the coming weeks.
I feel I’ve covered a lot of ground this morning. Are you still with me? Might be time to wrap things up.
Other things…
I watched this on ABC, and loved the mid-week opportunity for a mini-astronomy lesson. If you’re looking for some interesting, gentle, perspective brimming watching, this could be a good one.
I haven’t been reading much at all these past few weeks (I’ll blame work and uni clogging up my brain). Currently, on my bedside table (or in terms of the latter: in my headphones) you’ll find this and this and this. I’m slowly and haphazardly reading bits of each of them. However, this has been calling my name from its unread resting place on my bookshelf and after loving Sprackland’s other nonfiction book Strands last winter (which ties directly into the themes of locality and repetition and place discussed above) I’m tempted to pick it up and dive in.
One last thing: the second series of Great Australian Walks with Julia Zemiro starts this Thursday on SBS. A great show. Enjoy!
Well, I’ve finished my coffee now and it’s high time to get stuck into the day. But before I go I want to thank
for getting me hooked on the little footnotes you’ll find throughout this letter. I love the way Kate uses them throughout her work, and think you will too.And that’s quite enough for now.
Until next time, travel light…
Lucinda x
The reason for the tardiness of this letter: I have two assignments due this week.
I fully acknowledge that it is a privilege to have choices.
Did you know our earth travels approximately 940 million km per year around the sun (while spinning us through our days)? Dizzy yet?
i feel seen, and that insta video sums it all up really.
I’m glad!