The morning was still and blue and clear and the sun had softened the frost and the leaves were golden on the green lawn. Weather is coming. The radio is full of sheep grazier alerts and bushwalking warnings. In the bare grape vine outside the laundry door a grey fantail twitched its tail and clicked its beak. I was still in my pjs, had spent the early morning at my desk. The small bird chided. So I turned away from the washing basket, from the invoices waiting to be sent, the books humming to be read, the words needing to be written.
I caught Frank and we walked to the stone stable. Under his rug he was shiny as polished pebble, his coat walnut brown tinted with hints of mahogany. The morning was huge and open. The dogs were spinning tops.
*
Last night I had crept to bed a foreigner in my own life. The reasons aren’t important, but I wonder if you know the feeling? I felt my choices to have been bad ones, my courage not sufficient, my discipline lacking, and under this the rising swell of having failed at some test, at having stood still when I should have worked harder, at having left, unrealised, a different sort of life. Midlife, I hear you oldies mutter, keep on. But the melancholy had stayed.
*
The horse, the dogs and I walk out into the blue world. On the hill a dead tree stands like a Viking ship caught on a reef. In its rigging crows caw. I try to count; ten, fifteen, thirty. The tree is black with them. They will be adolescents, not yet wily, only arrogant. They hurl insults. Not that high above them are two eagles, who drift on feathers of air. A pair of wood ducks flap in panic, lifting from the dam as we appear over the hill. The lonely musk duck and a single black swan simply watch us pass. Frank starts, his heart jumping into mine. A small mob of lambs are feeding on the wall of the dam, their wool the colour of summer, invisible in the dried grass. We slosh through a bog. Robins, scarlet and flame, escort us up the fence. Now we’re into the bush. The dogs disappeared and I remind myself not to be too dreamy incase one of them chases a kangaroo out the scrub and under Frank’s nose. The bush is thick with birds. Noisy miners warn the world of our arrival. Fantails flit ahead of us. Honey eaters and wattle birds clatter. A pair of tubby bronze pigeons whir from the sandy track. Parrots, blue winged, rosellas - musk, green and eastern - surf around me, the air their ocean. The dogs find us at the next gate. Their tongues are pink, their sides heaving.
Riding, I’ve had one earphone in listening to the writer Jennifer Egan speak about her process. It’s wonderful interview and she is talking about how, after the death of her brother she has had to metabolise loss1. The phrase is arresting. It’s such an accurate description of the work of grief, a work that has to be absorbed, that can’t be hurried, that continues to run in and through us, that must be accepted as part of us, that has to happen if we are to continue to live.
We reach Big Run. I’d set off without purpose, but once out here it seemed silly not to save J a job and so I search for the young wethers who need checking. The ground is full of water, sodden with it, it’s running down sheep tracks despite it not having rained for over a week. The sheep are far away, woolly dots against a wall of bush. We trot and I bless my clever little stock horse who is not put off by boggy ground. He jumps a small gully and we canter up the hill. We work a line between the bush and the sheep until I get above them in the trees. They start to move off but then they see James the corgi who had taken a shortcut across the paddock. Frank and I are still in the bush. The young sheep turn as one and follow James. I’m invisible. They walk almost right up to me fascinated by James. It’s not until Dusty appears, her black bulk a threat, that the spell is broken and they scatter.
*
Home and I wash the sweat from Frank’s neck and back, the mud from his legs and then because the day is so beautiful I put him in his paddock without his rug. He digs for a moment and then drops to his knees and rolls, first one side and over and then up and he shakes and then he digs and drops again.
The lines from a favourite David Whyte poem Everything is Waiting for You rise:
To feel abandoned is to deny the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely, even you, at times, have felt the grand array; the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding out your solo voice. You must note the way the soap dish enables you, or the window latch grants you freedom. Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity. Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
In the gloaming I catch Frank. He grazes while I brush the worst of the mud from his back. I put his rug on and the grey fantail swoops from the ancient prunus trees and snaps at insects in the last light of the day.
mm x
Reading
Tove Jansson, Fair Play, introduction by Ali Smith. You’ve probably all read this, but if you haven’t and need to read an exquisite short novel about love and work then order now. Here’s a review. I sped through in a night and a morning. I put down Audrey Magee’s The Colony when Fair Play fell into my hands. But that was unfair on this excellent novel about a community on an island off the Irish Coast who are forced to endure an English painter and a French linguist living with them for a summer. Both men want to capture the island as they see it, or as they think they see it. The writing is wonderful, the characters deep and the metaphor prescient. This deep dive on research into how animals suffer from PTSD. Fascinating. Also this NYT article on mature runners. Keep moving Sitters.
Listening/watching
Maybe i was procrastinating…but I loved my friend Kim Berry doing a tour of the Arnotts Biscuit Factory. And now I know how Tim Tams are made!
Doing
On Saturday I drove to New Norfolk and went to the Derwent Valley Writers Festival. I was there to support my friend Meg Bignell (sign up to her gorgeous newsletter here) who was speaking on a panel about pathways to publication. I was thinking ho hum but the panel ended up being a delightful conversation about writing process and navigating self doubt and how to push through and it was all expertly chaired by Liz Evans. Afterwards we sat in the weak sunshine and had superior tomato soup from The Agrarian Kitchen Kiosk and then walked up the street to the superbly curated Black Swan bookshop. Right next door is Miss Arthur where you can buy every brush you’ve ever needed in your life. Even without a writer’s festival New Norfolk has become a wonderful place to visit.
Writing
This week a profile on a Tassie farmer doing super interesting things. More to come.
Events
I’m doing a Sit Spot retreat with the wonderful women of MeTime Experiences. It’s in October, in Noosa!! All the details are here. Their retreats are always next level special.
Thank you CF for this link - this bloke does the best interviews with writers for anyone interested.
What I saw
Beautiful observations. I'm not a farm person, not really even a dog person, but you had me at 'The morning was huge and open. The dogs were spinning tops.' Ugh. Love it. Thank you!
Thanks Maggie, as I read this my 5 yr old boof head boxer and my new baby boxer 10 weeks old we’re doing their rough fun play which I’m still adjusting to, so I ignored their noises and playful growls while immersed in your sit spot, 😂