Wednesday, September 25, 2013

The Calm Before The Clearing.


I've been in a funny transition period.  A period that has lasted for, um, about 7 years.

I had such an idyllic upbringing that just meandered along so beautifully until my early twenties.  Of course it wasn't all sandcastles and margaritas - I fell in and out of love, lost and re-found friends, won prizes and criticism, left home for the big smoke where the cycles were again repeated in new territory; I had a healthily undulating life.  But it wasn't horrid or hard to the point where I questioned things in a dramatic sense.

And then tiny threads started to pull and come apart.

My seas have been gathering a bit of confidence, and over the past seven years they've been sneakily dishing up the curveballs.  For the first five years I'd been sailing through like a pro - deftly navigating an unexpected swell; brushing myself off as the lines tightened my sails; adjusting my sou'wester when the rains hit a little harder than before.

But, as we know, an ocean storm slowly gathers confidence, building to a squall.  And I've been in its sights.  This little pocket is tossing me around ferociously, like a final spin cycle.

I keep imagining the clearing; just when you think you've had enough, that you cannot possibly take another hit, it just stops. The skies clear, the seas flatten out and the sun comes bounding out from behind the clouds. You realise you're alive.  Just.

I'm finally accepting the messages-in-bottles my ocean keeps sending and I'm going to chase some longheld little dreams.  And, as a result, this heartfilled space and my Instagram life may start to slowly chart a few different courses, I hope you'll come along for the journey.

First up is renovating the sweet bungalow (read nearly-falling-down shack) at Little Oak.  I'm heading up the highway in a week's time to get started.  I've been planning this for a few months but I'm a little shocked that the time is nearly here. When I was living in Los Angeles three years ago I wrote a 'dream bio' and one of the lines was: 'Frances splits her time between her inner-city Melbourne apartment and a bungalow at the bottom of the fruit orchard on her family farm'.

I'll share the other bits of my dreaming as they become realities. Or not.

Ahoy there me hearties.

(pic by Fanny Latour Lambert)

2 comments:

  1. sounds wonderful.
    wishing you so lots of happy and sweet times ahead. xx

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ooooooooh it's going to be so great Kate. Will tell you more about it all when next we chat! xo

    ReplyDelete