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The inbetweens

10/15/2019

Image: Stephen Edmonds

I’m feeling a wonderful sense of excited anticipation. I’ve been given a writer’s residency on Bruny Island, in the deep south of Tasmania. With little idea what treasure it holds in store, it’s an open door I can’t wait to step through. I’m feeling a bit like Lucy, in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, crossing the threshold with no idea what lies beyond.

I’m packing my thermals because its bound to be chilly, and walking boots and sunscreen, along with my writer’s tools, because I’m far more creative sitting on a rock on a beach or in the bush, than chained to a desk. But most of all I want to take along abundant curiosity, a sense of adventure and an open and inquiring mind, because to a large extent this adventure will be what I make it.

But that’s true of all of life isn’t it? We can walk the safe and comfortable road and I’ve done my fair share of that over the years, or explore and discover along the verges and unmade paths beyond the horizon. That takes courage but the rewards are priceless.

Image: Luke Mitchell Cooper

I love the work of the late Peter Dombrovskis, a photographer who journeyed out into the wild areas of Tasmania where few people venture, to share with the world a snapshot of the Australia few people will ever get to see. It’s a hidden world of incredible beauty along the remote and inaccessible paths and he captured it with outstanding clarity.

One man, willing to step out into the unknown, has inspired millions of people around the world.

He challenges me to realise that we all have that capacity, to push the boundaries and explore the unknown in whatever form it presents to us. To discover what every moment holds, not living for the main events but embracing the in-betweens as filled with just as much treasure.

I’ve had occasion to fly a few times lately and realise that I have a tendency to see the time in-between take off and landing as an inconvenient prelude to getting to my destination and its a pretty accurate picture of so much of our lives. If you're like me, you have a tendency to always be thinking, planning and preparing for the next 'thing'.

But there are more in-between times in life than there are main events, at least that’s true in my life. What a lot of opportunities we waste preparing for the next occasion and missing all the gold buried in-between, in the pauses and the nondescript moments of every day.

As I head out to discover whatever lies ahead for me on this adventure, I'm taking this opportunity to have a blogging break. The last few months there has been little time in my life for creativity and I'm feeing dry and empty because creativity is a huge part of who I am, how I'm wired. This trip seems a God-given gift to restoke my passion for nature and life, and to fan the flames of inspiration. So there will be no blog for the next few weeks but I hope I come back with fresh new insights and lots of reflections and great photos to share.

In the meantime, grab hold of all those in-between moments and find the joy, wonder and possibilities they hold.

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What I learned at a bedside

10/8/2019

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One day on my travels I was forced to stop and wait while some farmers tried to get their uncooperative cows across the road. There seemed to be no way to get them to move any faster even with a good hefty push from behind.

I know the feeling. I meet it as I stand behind people with trolleys piled high in the supermarket, wondering if I’ve chosen the quickest line. While hanging on the end of the phone waiting the 90 minutes it generally takes to connect with Centrelink or observing all the other people waiting, lined up around the walls of the doctor’s surgery as my 10 o’clock appointment drags on till 10:45 because he’s running late.

Waiting is an integral part of life.

There’s the joyful anticipation sort of waiting … to meet the little person you’ve been carrying for nine long months … counting the days till a birthday or Christmas … the homecoming of a loved one … the long awaited holiday. That type of waiting increases our anticipation, longing and hope.

There’s the waiting that tries our patience like queues, delays, interruptions (and wayward cows, if you're a farmer).

And then there’s the really tough one … the agonising wait to know if I got the job … for the medical results I fear won’t be good news ... to find a life partner or to hope that this month I might be pregnant after so many disappointments.

My first pregnancy was a breeze, almost textbook. My second was a very different story … month after month of heartache and disappointment waiting to fall pregnant. One night after yet another disappointment I did what I always do when I’m sad or stressed, I did the ironing. I ironed the laundry basket empty, tears streaming down my face over every shirt, tablecloth and pillowcase. Eventually, exhausted, I crashed into bed and slept until the early hours of the morning when I was awakened by the smell of smoke. The whole laundry was ablaze. Distracted by pain I had forgotten to switch off the iron.

Waiting can be excruciatingly painful.

Recently I watched my friend dying; dying one of those deaths we all hope won’t be our lot. I sat beside her week after week and month after month as she faded slowly into a mere shadow of her former self. She was weak and weary and longed to go and be with Jesus but the journey of death was agonisingly slow. It was painful to watch, and each visit took determination knowing my heart would break all over again.

I pondered a lot about how we are changed in the waiting?

I learned that waiting invites me to face the reality of my own helplessness. When that deep gnawing demand for control that we all know so well comes up against a situation over which I have no control at all.

Waiting allows me the space to grow that still axis within myself that is comfortable with helplessness; that allows me to resign my demands for control and accept waiting as a gift.

And having got my attention, waiting enlarges me … it grows my patience, increase my mental and emotional strength and endurance ... it slows me down to remind me what's important in this moment, in this day.

I wonder if the times of waiting may actually be the most valuable parts of life.

I can’t make the checkout person work any faster, I can’t turn the traffic lights from red to green, I’m unable to make Centrelink answer my call any quicker and I definitely can’t stop the march of cancer. But I can accept the invitation that is being handed to me and learn the lessons waiting has to teach.

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Five gifts of friendship

10/1/2019

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When I look back over my life, it's not the things I've done or the places I've been that are most memorable, it's the people I've known. “Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.” Anais Nin.

I recently caught up with a friend who came to visit me the week I was born. We grew up together, then our families grew up together and we sometimes relive a lifetime of memories built around blackberry picking, prawning, bonfire nights, shared holidays and so much more. We remember mishaps and misadventures and can laugh about them now, in hindsight. I remember one camping trip. The camp site had a bathhouse of all things. Who ever heard of the luxury of a bath while camping? Loving baths as I do, I grabbed the opportunity. The only problem was the lock was faulty so there was no way of being sure the door was secure, so my friend kindly stood guard.

Later that night my friend's husband decided to have a bath but we forgot to warn him about the lock. He came back to the tent somewhat embarrassed with a tale about someone walking in on him as he bathed. They are the crazy memories that are special because they are unique to your friendship.

I love Mary Engelbreit's way of explaining it, "As with any journey, who you travel with can be more important than your destination".

To have a rich and enduring friendship is to have one of the most precious gifts in life. If you have one true friend you are indeed blessed.

Yet friendship seems to have become one of those overused words, in danger of losing it's meaning. Social media has minimised friendship to mere connections, and encouraged quantity not quality. While we might follow friends on Facebook, friendship will only ever grow rich through personal interaction ... spending time together ... investing in each other's lives.

You cannot put a price on the gift of friendship, it is priceless.

A friend is a witness to my life. Someone who has been on the journey of life with me, has believed in me and valued who I am ... who can remind me how far I've come. Someone with whom I can share my innermost thoughts and struggles and not be judged ... who shares my joys and successes and gets excited with me. Someone who truly knows and accepts me, a safe haven.

True friends have been a mirror to me, enabling me to see myself through another person's eyes. They encourage me to be my best self and discourage me from the things that make me less than I can be.

Friendship is unmerited grace. It's a commitment to continually turning up and being there for the other person, through thick and thin. Its about continual tolerance, mercy and forgiveness.

A friendship is a commitment of two people to invest in the relationship. There is no such thing as a nonreciprocal friendship. By its very definition, its a two way street, a mutual giving and receiving, which is both health giving and nourishing. It keeps you looking out beyond yourself.

Unlike our relatives, friendship is a choice. We are in it because we want to be. And the choice continues, the more I invest into the friendship, the deeper it grows. "Friendship is a slow ripening fruit" - Aristotle.

I’m not only blessed to have had some amazing friends throughout my life but I’ve had the honour to be a friend. I’ve been privileged to share both heartache and victories and to be trusted with innermost thoughts and dreams.

I treasure the tangible reminders of friends ... recipes shared and marked with their name in my recipe book; Molly's fruit cake and Shirley's Strawberry Mousse ... in plants swapped and now blooming in my garden ... in books given with names engraved on the flyleaf. They are happy reminders of rich times together over the years ... of lifelong friends and those just given for a season.

We leave an imprint on someone's life through the gift of our friendship.

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The inbetweens

What I learned at a bedside

Five gifts of friendship

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