Eighty percent of my childhood family holidays were exactly the same. We’d pile into the 1985 Tarago and drive for an hour until the first of us shouted, “I see the trees,” shortly followed by “I see the sea.” Our Gran owned a beach shack where we’d spend a week every school holidays. Tall gums lined the only road in and out, and we’d crane our necks on the approach to be the first to spot the sign we were almost there.

When my grandad died on April 10th in 2021, he left behind a memoir. When I finally read it, I was also reading Destiny: Learning to Live by Preparing to Die by David Gibson. The two were weirdly complementary. With the first I was saddened by the passing of time; with the second I was almost comforted by it. The first had me dwelling on the past while the second had me anticipating the future. The first helped me to process the death of my grandad. The second helped me to process the inevitable death of all my loved ones, even my own death.

Last month, I had the opportunity to attend an art retreat in northeast Tasmania with my sister. She is an artist, and a very good one at that. My own artistic experience, however, was limited to high school art class, a paint-by-numbers kit, and a paint-and-sip evening with colleagues.

The retreat had been pitched to me as a relaxed and flexible do-what-you-want kind of gig. So rather than feel daunted by trying something completely new, I devised a simple plan: I would discover a hidden natural talent and amaze everyone, or failing that, I’d use the time to get some writing done.

In a perfect world, I would support our local school as a Christian family by keeping my children there until the end of their schooling journey. I would keep my children living at home with me. They would continue to be involved in our local church each weekend.

But we don’t live in a perfect world.

A year ago, I was determined not to be seduced by the idol of education. Nothing much has changed in that sphere. I must constantly remind myself that we serve the Lord Jesus and not the shiny aspirations of the world.

I am listening 

to the laughing kookaburras up the tree

to the wind blowing down the chimney 

to the piano which is out of tune 

to the possum crawling in the roof 

to the bubbling of slow cooked beef stew 

to the swaying clothes on the line 

to my client who’s having a hard time 

to the chicken scratching a place to sleep 

to my loose fan belt starting to screech

What does it take to be joyful?

I pose this question to myself as I sit opposite my husband at our local café/playground. It is a beautiful spot, framed with gum trees and filled with casual weekend vibes. It’s a pleasant 30-odd degrees, the kids are playing, and I have a latte and the paper. It is a picture of the idyllic Saturday morning for our family.

Quite different from the scenario earlier in the week when I had endured a severe case of gastro overnight. As I lay in bed, hoping to get some relief, my four-year-old daughter came and informed me that Daddy had now been sick too. So as I was the better of the two of us, I hauled myself to the lounge room with the minimal aim of ensuring no children injured themselves. Inevitably, a few hours later, one of the children succumbed to the illness. Several loads of washing, much Glen 20 and Hydralite later, I collapsed into bed. What a contrast. 

I am learning that friendship needs a sustained curiosity to last the distance.  Last week I sat by a pool with a couple of good friends. We sat in the shade, ate snacks and swapped book recommendations between dips into the glistening water.  It has been over fifteen years since we forged our friendship. One of us has an appetite for bike riding, another loves attending live country music and the third enjoys ocean swimming. Perhaps these interests have not changed much over the years, but we have. We attend different kinds of churches, have different strengths and have not followed the life paths that we expected for ourselves when we were in our twenties.  Nonetheless, we enjoy a warm curiosity towards one another that has sustained and deepened our friendship. If we had assumed on being the same people that we were when we met, our friendships may not have continued. 

As a young woman I remember wondering who went to the gynecologist. Women seemed to talk about it in the movies, but I didn’t know anyone who had a gynecologist. I thought maybe it was something Americans did. Now I realise–it’s middle aged women who go to the gynecologist. All my friends are doing it. Things just don’t work quite how they should anymore. Copy and repeat.

“Hurry, make more

Hustle, cut through

Quick, achieve it

Climb, how high?

What can you win?

What can you gain?”

The middle months of the year are often long. The cloudy, rainless days seem to drag on and on. The brilliant colours of summer are over and everything seems brown, grey, unexciting, dull. Daylight is short, and is filled with endless tasks, some that inspire, but many others that must simply be done. 

And yet, even in these gloomy days, there are moments of joy. Of discovery. Of creativity. Of wonder. Oh to wonder as a child does, with even the smallest of things inspiring great fascination and delight!

I started my journey with music at a fairly young age. From six  years old I recall sitting in front of the stereo for hours listening to Celine Dion and Whitney Houston, trying to imitate their melody lines (not bad vocal coaching and ear training!) I made mix tapes on my radio and cassette recorder. Music was my love and passion from very early on. I was drawn to it. It conjured emotions and communicated in a way that was transcendent. It expressed heart sentiments and soul longings that I didn’t know how to express, or even quite what they were. 

But I grew up on a diet of popular music that mostly consisted of love songs, breakup songs, “how will I live without you?” songs. Let’s just say the lyrical (or musical for that matter) depth and breadth of the songs was not particularly vast. And when you listen to commercial radio today, not much has changed. Although these days, it seems there are less straight up love songs, and more “I am bitter/ I really don’t like you/ watch your back” type songs. Songs that express a cynicism or skepticism of love. 

His daughter spoke first. And then his brother. And finally, two of his friends. Several days ago, I turned in at four o’clock in the morning after staying up to watch a friend’s funeral online.  It was the second funeral I had watched in the space of a few days and whilst the formats were similar, the stories were literally worlds apart.  One detailed a life lived in Australia, teaching in theological colleges, a much-loved mentor and friend to many. The other had grown up in a street overlooking Aston Villa Park before a Billy Graham crusade had changed the course of her life. Long before tourists had caught the travel bug to South America, she had moved to Bolivia as a missionary and raised her five children there before returning to the UK. 

“I didn’t know that she spoke Spanish to her grandchildren,” my sister said when I told her about the funeral. Neither did I. We need to hear their stories. We need to hear the tributes. From childhood memories to honed skills, celebrations and losses, untold achievements and comical anecdotes; eulogies may be the hardest speeches to write but they are an immense privilege to hear, often inspiring and encouraging a community of listeners to live well.

Crisp, sunburned leaves. A shrivelled stem gasping for water. Grey, sandy soil that repels moisture—much like my legs in summer. Toss in a grassless lawn for dramatic effect, and you’ve got a snapshot of my gardening track record.

I once thought it was a brilliant idea to plant baby fruit trees during a 40+ degree January heatwave, straight into what could technically be described as “dirt,” but more closely resembled beach sand. Yes, I was that person. Of the three trees I planted, one heroically died and was respectfully composted. The cause of death? Possibly the soil, the sun, the lack of water—or maybe the tree just took one look at its new home and decided, “Yeah, nah.”

There was a Word

Before the seas were drawn

And the earth received her form

There was a Song

Whispered at the first dawn

And hidden in each lightning storm

There comes a stage in pregnancy—the waddle stage I like to call it—where women who have been there before may just ask you: ‘how are you going?’ They give you a smile, they look you in the eye, and if it happens then you feel seen. And loved.  

They know that you are probably not feeling at your all-time best. Probably you get tired just by standing up and existing for a period of time. Probably your pelvic floor is not as functional as it could be. Probably picking up your toddler is becoming problematic. Possibly you are turning the corner towards the home stretch and starting to think that maybe birth is not so bad because at the end the baby is on the outside at last!  

Well, that’s what I’m thinking at least. 

Canoeing down the river

Gentle current moves me.

Ebbing, flowing water

And sunlight, all surrounding.

And as I go 

I’m leaving places,

Tearfully farewelling faces,

But the still, small voice,

He gently whispers,

“It’s time to let go”. 

It’s an object that’s out of place. 

My beautiful, Arab coffee ‘thermos’. It has an elegant gold spout and silver body etched with leaves. It looks like it belongs to a Saudi prince. But it’s actually just plastic and sold in cheap homeware shops. Something like it is used in most Arab lounge rooms throughout the Middle East during formal occasions such as Eid (religious holidays), funerals or weddings. Guests are honoured on arrival with a shot-sized serving of bitter, black coffee, usually cardamon-flavoured. 

But here it sits. This gold thermos looking out of place on my wobbly, dusty, laminated table under a noisy fan. Elegantly sitting between scattered lab request forms, hand gel, paediatric growth charts and my stethoscope. Ready to serve patients who come to see me at the clinic. 

I am playing offense. It is an experiment.

The bus lurches forward in traffic and the standing passengers jostle for space.  The commuters in front of me keep bumping against my feet and I am not sure who feels more uncomfortable.  Dangling my legs out into the central aisle of the bus is clearly not working.  I pull my feet up into my chest and I receive a grateful smile from a woman in front of me.  Sitting in the luggage rack of the bus, I concede that I have chosen an unusual seat.  However, now that I have discovered this hidden-in-plain-sight option, it has proved quite useful on my travels across this new city.

Two months ago, I arrived in a new country with my new husband.  With heavy suitcases in tow, we landed at midnight in Argentina, the country that my husband calls home.  A purple beanie was promptly put on my head by one of our friendly welcomers and in the blur of fatigue, jet lag and the bracing cold of a winter’s night, we were ushered to a waiting car.

For me, the new is always so… uncomfortably new. Like someone turning the light on when you are fast asleep and you awake in a confused fog and not a little bit grumpy. There are of course those who exuberantly embrace their new environment like rolling down a grassy hill.  When they reach the bottom, they jump up ready to do it again, laughing off the grass stains across their clothes.  Of course, they probably don’t have a pollen allergy either. 

See the galahs, the galahs, 

sitting on the powerlines! 

See how they laugh, they laugh, 

like mums on the sidelines