The Book Flood
It’s New Year’s Eve, and something weird is happening.
I’m sitting cross-legged on the couch in a long violet dress, sipping soju. My hair is still damp from my solo swim earlier. Three young goth girls are singing to me in Icelandic from my Spotify playlist. The sun is setting, flooding our seventh-floor apartment with light, and my three-legged rescue cat is giving me languorous slow blinks.
And in his corner chair, specs on, head down, my husband is reading my debut novel for the first time.
In 2014 I spent a month in far-northern Iceland on a writing residency. If you’ve followed my blog before, you’ll know that I’m a winter wench at heart: thigh-high snow, the northern lights over my rooftop, breath clouding in front of my face. From that and other visits to Iceland, my book formed.
In 2019 I signed a publication contract with Simon and Schuster. I’m skipping the redrafting, the pitching and praying, the oceans of uncertainty. You don’t need to read that. I signed a contract, one of the most joyous events of my life, and within weeks, Covid hit.
Think I’ll just skip over that too, if you don’t mind.
So here we are in December 2022, and my husband is holding in his hands the ARC of my debut novel, the advance reader copy. Things have suddenly kicked into Very High Gear. This version has been sent to reviewers, bloggers and booksellers, and I’m trying to find space in my head and heart for the knowledge it’s out in the world.
And it’s in my husband’s hands. Deep breath, stop watching his face for each muscle movement, don’t ask at each chuckle ‘What part are you up to?’ A novelist himself, I want so much for him to nod, and say, ‘Good work, baby.’
Here is what I do know. My book, ‘Fed to Red Birds,’ will be officially published on March 8 (International Women’s Day, a coincidence I’m over the moon about) and the cover will be revealed in the next two weeks. Simon and Schuster have been utterly amazing, from my editors and publicists to audio publishers and Icelandic specialists. They’ve sent out exquisite ARC packages with little wooden ornaments and a postcard with a QR code that leads straight to our ‘Fed to Red Birds’ playlist of Icelandic artists. These were sent in time for the Icelandic tradition of the Christmas Book Flood, celebrating books and reading. I’m excited and delighted and so very grateful that after the distress and delay that was Covid, my book is finally coming.
But for now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to take my soju and sit out on the balcony. I’m going to wait for fireworks and pretend not to watch my husband’s every facial movement.
Wish me luck.
Oh, and happy New Year’s Eve. I wish you nothing but blessings for the coming cycle.
Oh my goth
Seven days in my high-rise flat with punk records, overladen bookcases, and this view of the Melbourne docks.
I tested positive for Covid yesterday. My husband too. We’re doing well with few symptoms, but need to isolate for seven days. And in that slowing down, I have more time for this blog.
The last few months have included…the unforgettable experience of seeing my first book, ‘Voice,’ on shelves in bookstores (my heart, my heart). The unavoidable disappointment of seeing the launch cancelled due to Covid, twice. Fingers crossed for a third attempt.
Teaching again at my language college after Covid took my job last year. Never thought I’d be excited to correct essays again! Falling in love with Shirley Jackson’s amazing novella ‘We Have Always Lived in the Castle’ and tracking down her other books. Having one of my literary heroes and one of Australia’s most respected writers, Helen Garner, judge me the winner of the Strange Days essay competition with my story of my beloved pet snake (confession: I squealed like a teenager when I got that phone call). Being one of the writers commissioned to take part in The Only Question project from Ulyanovsk, Russia, linking UNESCO Cities of Literature writers from all over the world.
Having two of my stories published in The Big Issue here in Australia: one on the joy of exploring foreign supermarkets and deciphering their language puzzles, the other about my goth days and the startling (only to me) realisation that I haven’t really left them. Rehearsing for the Williamstown Literary Festival with my old crew Stereo Stories, pitching for the Melbourne City of Literature project on lost libraries, and applying for another writing residency. After Iceland and Finland gave me such gold, this time I’m reaching for Sweden.
Tonight is Samhain in the Southern Hemisphere, also known as Hallowe’en. In isolation I can’t pick fresh flowers for my altar or walk by Maribyrnong River. I’m happy though with a whiskey hot toddy, an afternoon reading short stories on the couch, and an autumn sunset. Always ready for the wheel to keep turning, and see what stories the new cycle brings.
Romeo Lane and Juliet Terrace
She was known as Madame Brussels. Of course I loved the name; my favourite city. In my hometown on the other side of the world, I stood on the corner of Lonsdale Street in central Melbourne and looked for the laneway named after her.
Madame Brussels looms large in the history of Melbourne. She owned and ran some of the most expensive brothels in the city in the 19th century. There were dance halls, pubs, opium dens and many ‘houses of ill-repute’ crammed into the notorious Little Lon area, and their history still pokes through, if you know where to look.
I was on the hunt for Romeo Lane and Juliet Terrace, with Bilking Square in the middle. The red light district of Victorian era Melbourne, if you can’t tell by the names.
In this city we’ve been in the longest, strictest lockdown in Covid history: 265 days of hardcore restrictions. No shops or bars open, no movement more than 5km from home, a 9pm curfew. It’s been…challenging. There are only so many Kali chants, bass guitar lessons and black and white movies a woman can take before she decides to use her daily exercise hour to explore the back streets of her own city.
Though in all honesty, I could take a few more Tennessee Williams film adaptations.
Here’s the thing though: I couldn’t find Romeo Lane, Juliet Terrace or Bilking Square. I walked, I frowned, I retraced my steps. My search took me past two of my favourite bookstores, Paperback Bookshop and Hill of Content, but they were (of course) shut in lockdown, and I was on a mission.
I found where I thought Bilking Square should be. It looked familiar. When I realised why, I leaned against a red brick wall to take it all in. I was outside the very restaurant in which I’d met my publisher at Scribner last year to celebrate signing a contract for my debut novel. I’d worn red lipstick, a cinched waist 50s dress with full skirt, and black ballet flats. I think I was aiming for Ava Gardner, but landed more on the side of Lucille Ball, with inappropriate jokes about the plague and polyamory. When the waiter leaned in to place a linen napkin on my lap, I flinched. I ate tagliatelle with smoked fennel seeds and almost choked on them when my publisher said my book has ‘just the right amount of blood in the water.’ I proposed a champagne toast to the memory of my beautiful aunt Grace, whom the book will be dedicated to when published. She felt right there at the table with me.
Lord, what a day that was.
Turns out it used to be Romeo Lane, but had been renamed Crossley Street 150 years ago in an effort to cleanse the streets of their sordid Little Lon reputation. It didn’t matter though; I went home smiling.
Turns out my stories are written on Melbourne’s streets, too, if I remember to look.
‘Voice’ launch
In the heart of Brussels in the Canal of Wolves
Wolvengracht
Rue du Fossé aux Loups
The box landed on my doorstep in time for Imbolc, the Witchcraft festival marking the end of winter and the approach of spring. I knew what it was straight away. I set the box on my altar, not knowing what to do with it, and the flurry of emotion that had landed with it.
It didn’t last long.
There are few finer experiences than opening a box of your own books for the first time.
‘Writer Rijn Collins’ VOICE is a moving, honest and, at times, darkly humorous three-part memoir. She knocks on the doors to belonging, identity and love through the power of language and her innate desire to understand both herself and others. Drawing on Rijn’s linguistic background in Flemish, Irish and Icelandic, VOICE is both a curious tour of foreign places and words as well as a triumphant journey to the heart and light.’
Travel seems long ago and far away thanks to Covid, which is why I absolutely loved writing about my time with these lands and their languages. But what I loved most – what I’ll always love – is writing about Brussels.
I lived there for a year in my teens, and for nine months in my thirties. Deciding what to include in the Flemish chapter of my memoir was so much more challenging than the Irish and Icelandic sections, though I love both those languages too. Memories of Brussels keep floating up, and I hope they never stop.
The Witchcraft store where I’d buy amber and myrrh incense wrapped in wax paper, and tiny bells to plait into my long black hair.
The bar on Schildknaapsstraat, Street of the Squires, where at seventeen I met a Swedish backpacker whose recent inheritance was allowing him to travel far and wide across Europe. When he invited me to join him, fully funded, it was a temptation beyond belief. When I eventually and regretfully declined, he tied a bracelet around my wrist to remember him by. Decades later, I still know which box in the garage it’s in, nestled next to a deer skull and antlers, snake skins and velvet dresses.
The library where I found a huge volume of Sylvia Plath’s journals, and painstakingly handwrote whole chapters into a teal notebook, week after week.
The hairdresser where a devastating breakup led me to cut off my waist-length hair, like a myriad of heartbroken women before me. When the owner asked if I’d like to keep the hair, I told him about the relationship. He murmured sympathy and asked ‘Would you like me to stomp on it instead?’ Mais oui, monsieur, oui. He gathered all his staff and to my delight, led them in a wild dance across the studio, grinding my hair into the floorboards.
I could go on (and I probably will, somewhere).
Or you could come along to my launch this Sunday in Melbourne and pick up a copy yourself.
When: Sunday 8th August, 3pm-6pm
Where: Sloth bar, 202 Barkly Street, Footscray
If you have an interest in Icelandic spells or feminist punk, linguistics or Goth girls, or just supporting local authors…would love to see you there.
VOICE
Something wonderful has happened.
My name is on a book cover.
My debut collection of short memoir, VOICE, is now available for pre-order. Somekind Press is a crowdfunded publishing house, and their ROAR series is ‘dedicated to some of Australia’s newest and most exciting writing talent.’ Such amazing company to be in!
From Somekind’s website:
‘An adventure, a home, a new skin to slide into and claim as my own…” In writer Rijn Collins’ VOICE, a moving, honest and, at times, darkly humorous three-part memoir, we meet a young Rijn on a personal journey of discovery; a poignant search to find and accept herself. Rijn’s hunt takes her to faraway lands – from Melbourne to Belgium and Iceland (and back again), from drinking cherry beers on medieval cobblestone streets to gazing at the Northern Lights knee-deep in snow in places where “roads are rerouted to avoid underground elf homes.” Punk to paganism, snow and solitude to cheery Irish pubs, Rijn knocks on the doors to belonging, identity and love through the power of language and words and her innate desire to understand both herself and others. Drawing on Rijn’s linguistic background in Flemish, Irish and Icelandic, VOICE is both a curious tour of foreign places and words as well as a triumphant journey to the heart and light.
If you’ve been following my blog, you know I love the niche, and there is plenty of that here. Tiny bird bones and feminist punk, pagan altars and snakes curled asleep in my bra, snowy sagas and Goth cafes, the languages I adore and a winter solstice wedding, a taxidermy snow goose and a potential Riverdance audition.
If that sounds up your alley – you beautiful weirdo – please click through on the photos and place your pre-order. You have ten days to do so to help it reach publication, so I would love your support, as well as the opportunity to support a fabulous new micro-publisher on the Australian, Japanese and American literary scene. Here we go 
Maelstrom
Her name meant ‘nocturnal journey.’ I chose her for that reason from the clinic’s website. For my first appointment, I was concerned about running late so pulled on the first thing my fingers found. I got to the front gate. A tight and lime green ‘Getting Lucky in Kentucky’ t-shirt might not be the best first impression. I changed it. These things count, you know.
‘Those places are full of secret codes of behaviour, believe me. They won’t tell you what they are, but they’ll sure as hell notice when you break them.’
She had pale, fine hair and smiled often. I sat cross-legged on her couch and didn’t smile at all. My hand rested on my breastbone as though trying to push down the pressure that had been building in my ribcage.
In our third session, she leaned forward.
‘Did you know – ‘ I leaned forward too – ‘that uncertainty doesn’t seem to sit well with you?’
I did know. I sighed as I walked out of there. Who did it sit well with? I didn’t make another appointment.
A month later, Covid hit.
If there were ever a year to explore uncertainty, it’s 2020.
Like most of us, I’ve been limping towards December 31st. It’s been so grim for so long, and I am bone fucking tired. It was a year that started well, too, with publication contracts for both myself and my husband for our debut novels. But then 2020 tilted, everything skewed, and the unexpected came shooting straight at us.
I’m deeply grateful to have my health, my home and my husband. At this age, I’m surprised when I can still surprise myself, but I learned some things in 2020, and I’m grateful for them too. This little technophobe had a crash course in zoom and transferred 100% of her teaching online, to the amazement of everyone. I had it written into my wedding vows that I would not ask for husband for tech help, and lord, did I break that this year (thanks, baby). A global pandemic is a brutal background for the first year of marriage, but we turned to each other instead of against, and are closer than ever.
In a year that seemed never-ending, the importance of the Solstices and Equinoxes in marking time, and therefore opportunities for regeneration and renewal, were inestimable. My altar is the first place I go every morning, and the last at night. Through Nina Hagen I also found Kirtan, traditional Hindu devotional songs, which I’ve been singing all through lockdown (sorry, baby).
A huge hit of unexpected joy came in the form of another publication contract, though I’m not giving details until it’s all settled and signed. A teaser is that it allows me to write about my favourite place in the world, Brussels, as well as the setting of my novel, Iceland,, and my love of languages that has led me through a degree in Linguistics and fourteen years of language teaching. So excited to get to work!
One deeply painful lesson was that when my beloved Marley took unexpectedly sick and died in my hands five weeks ago, my own heart was able to still keep beating, though it broke into so many pieces. A life lived without a creature is not a life for me. Today we welcomed a three-legged rescue cat called Martha into our family, and her purring behind me right now is pure joy, though we all need time to adjust.
Lastly, trapped in Melbourne’s industrial west for eight months of lockdown, among petrochemical vats and noxious factories, I learned that I crave the forest. Green, green, so much hunger for green. I’ve been a city girl my whole life, but that may just be coming to a close. If 2020 has taught me anything, it’s that the unexpected is not necessarily the enemy.
And I’ve read. Damn, have I read. Thanks to everyone whose books, stories, articles and recommendations have been shared and supported by the astounding literary community, and so made their way into my life. If you have any recommendations (including your own books) please let me know.
Here’s to 2021….time to close our eyes, and leap.
Once in a blue Beltaine moon
The city looked weird. I felt deeply uncomfortable. There was only one other person in my train carriage, but their mask was slung low, under their nose. I moved seats. When I got off at Flinders Street Station in central Melbourne, there were few passengers. Ambling across the concourse instead were groups of police, navy blue uniforms stark against the pale Edwardian tiles. They seemed chatty, buoyant. I walked, head down. Then a pigeon flew out from behind a pillar, and I flinched.
It takes time to adjust to freedom, and I was not quite there.
Melbourne is opening again. We had 71 days of Stage Three restrictions, followed by 111 days of Stage Four; one of the longest and harshest lockdowns in Covid so far. It’s been…well, quite something. And doubtless something we’ll be processing for a long time to come.
My last post talks about the challenges; this one will catalogue the crutches that helped me through it (if we’re there, in fact – I’m taking nothing for granted anymore). Tonight, on Beltaine in the Southern Hemisphere, we’re welcoming the approaching summer, the turn of the seasons, the full blue moon. We’re welcoming the light back. So here’s where mine gets in.
Reading art books on Dürer, Jan van Eyck and Goya. Trading ideas with my publisher about book covers for my debut novel next year. Mentioning on Instagram that I was teaching myself bass tabs to my beloved Babes In Toyland, and having the bass player herself chime in with advice…total fan girl swoon. Then learning how to play the songs she suggested. Exploring the literature of Iceland, and translating idioms with an Icelandic friend for my novel. Being delighted and surprised by the joy of boxing, and the release of cutting all my nails off to fit in the gloves. Taking part in an online book club to discuss the incredible Helen Garner, and having the author herself join us for two hours of intoxicating chat. Nina Hagen devotional chants in my studio. And thrillingly, being approached about writing a book of narrative non-fiction once my novel edits are finished, and the delicious teasing out of stories that encourages.
My fat black cat has a hole in the laundry door she barrels through to get into our jungle courtyard. It used to have a flap, but her sheer girth smashed the fibreglass into tiny pieces long ago. She noses around the garden then howls at the kitchen door for us to let her back in. She seems to forget she could simply come back in the same way she left. The exit and entry are muddled; she doesn’t quite know what to do with her freedom. I feel much the same way right now. It could trigger tender memories of the years in my youth I spent agoraphobic, if I let it. But then I can also recall the feeling of standing at my front door, blinking at the sunshine, gaining courage.
It’s Beltaine, after all, and I know the light is coming.
Northern nostalgia
I’m not terribly good at judging spaces. I can sing Jacques Brel lyrics in French and Flemish, anticipate my hormone levels by the phases of the moon, and nail deadlines, word counts and themes without blinking. My spatial awareness, however, is really not a strength.
My husband still laughs that I thought our snake tank (a huge, heavy wooden monstrosity) would fit on top of our bookshelf (a flimsy frame). Friends have met more than one ex-lover of mine only to lean in and whisper ‘You said he was really tall!’ Invariably, I thought they were. Years later, I would realise several of them barely rose above my five foot six. My regard for them, it seems, continually overrode my realism.
I’m a word worker. I really can’t be trusted with numbers.
But numbers are all that count these days, it seems. It’s a constant source of conversation, especially here in Melbourne: Have you heard the statistics today? How many new infections? How many in ICU? How many on ventilators? How many in my suburb?
My dictionary has been replaced on my desk by a calculator, and I do not like it.
September studio
These are the Melbourne numbers: seven months in lockdown. One hour of exercise a day, no more than 5km from home. One person from each household allowed out to shop. A growing collection of masks. Everyone home by 8pm, the curfew enforced by police roadblocks. The fine for breaking curfew: $1652. Revenue raised so far by curfew fines in this state: almost three million. Three days of online teaching for me each week, three days writing. And waking at 5am most mornings, fretting and fearful.
Lockdown reading and rockabilly mask
I’m healthy though, and for now, employed. I know these are gifts. I have a novel coming out next year through Scribner, and an amazing husband also with a novel being published next year, who lifts my mood and alleviates my catastrophising with jokes aimed both at my large teeth and my complete failure to understand classic movies. I perversely enjoy both. We’re a damn good team.
A Brussels park, and a honeymooning husband (2019)
But it’s the 5km radius that keeps snagging my mood. I cannot see my friends, nor my family. They live in the forest 30kms outside of Melbourne whose lush shades of green I miss so much it causes an actual ache.
But, surprisingly, what I really miss is Northcote. I lived in this inner-northern suburb for twenty-five years, right up until love beckoned me across the West Gate Bridge. Earlier this year a story of mine was published by Quiet Corner in an anthology of Melbourne tales. Described as ‘geographies of love, loss, disappointment and change in a city beloved by many’, we had no idea just how much change would occur between the publication in May and this current situation. Reading my story about Northcote is now a bittersweet experience.
On the Street anthology – click link to purchase
Click to view our online panel for the Williamstown Literary Festival, myself included
I’ve stopped saying ‘When this is over….’ That belies a naivety that I don’t possess anymore. But when the 5km radius is eliminated or extended, I know where I’ll head.
I’ll walk past the vintage clothing store I used to unlock every Sunday, putting on Big Mama Thornton CDs and working on linguistic essays between customers. Past the bluestones of the Wesley Anne where for over a decade I co-ran with my best friend a monthly writers’ meeting, full of sticky mulled wine and red notebooks. Brown and Bunting bookstore where I first saw my name on an anthology cover and was almost sick with the thrill of it. The Northcote Social Club where a Swiss lover bought me burgundy and brûlée the night before his visa ended, and Bar 303 where a date with another man involved a false beard, a tiny doll that looked like me, and a woman who thought she was married to the Berlin Wall. The old Walhalla cinema where I saw ‘Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill!’ with punk pen pals visiting from Amsterdam, and the site of my beloved Bar Nancy, which I frequented so much they named a honey martini after me. And the tram stop where I first laid eyes on my Wolf and his cowboy shirt, chest hair and wide smile, and thought…well, let’s see where this leads, shall we?
That strip of High Street, Northcote may be 11km out of my lockdown zone, and many years in the past, but it still feels like home.
Rat of the library
I don’t know about you, but my quarantine creativity has been elusive. Even writing a monthly blog post has been a struggle. My studio is now my classroom and in all honesty, I can’t wait to leave it each day. Wherever in the world you are, I hope you’ve had more inspiration than me; that you’ve been picking up a pen, or a paintbrush, or a plectrum.
I’m relying on it.
I may not be producing art, but I am devouring it. I’ve never read so much in my life – and this is from a devoted bookworm. I even pulled out my old French and Flemish textbooks from when I lived in Brussels and was inordinately delighted to learn that ‘bookworm’ is listed as ‘rat de bibliothėque.’ ie rat of the library.
I’ve been reading feminist zines, punk lyrics, scientific explanations of phosphorescence, plague ‘cures’, German poetry, bass guitar tutorials and Solstice spells.
Birthday treats
Sylvia and champagne
Afternoon read with soup
Music brings solace too…as it always, always does. Chris Wilson blues and Betty Davis funk. I’ve been translating lyrics from Icelandic goth band Kaelan Mikla into English and howling along with them. I stumbled out of my comfort zone and straight into Schubert’s brilliant and beautiful Winterreise (winter travel) song cycle. Given that today hit only eleven degrees, it seems a perfect time to listen to songs detailing a man ‘falling asleep in snow and waking to the shrieking of ravens.’ I played it for my husband and he sighed with contentment and said ‘Sounds right up our alley.’ And then I drifted back into my comfort zone with Idles, a fierce and fabulous British punk band with excoriating and erudite lyrics tackling misogyny, toxic masculinity, consumer culture and so many more facets of our daily lives.
Melbourne blues legend Chris Wilson by artist Karyn Hughes
Ah, so I may have misled you. I did write a Stereo Story, and it sure felt good to get that pen moving.
Click here for my new Stereo Story (photo by Eric Algra)
And it sure felt good to get in the car when restrictions eased, and drive out of the city. I’ve needed green so much it made my fists clench. Last week saw my birthday, our first wedding anniversary and the Winter Solstice, so to the forest we went. Mist among the mountain ash and a Witch’s feet in soil…absolute bliss.
Kalorama misty morning
No surprises from a woman who had a Winter Solstice wedding/handfasting
There’s so much pressure to be productive. Through this pandemic I haven’t learned how to bake sour dough, or taught myself macramé, or pickling techniques for kim chi. Calmness has often been out of my reach, but kindness hasn’t, and I know which is more important.
I’m not currently producing art, but I’m sure as hell appreciating it. Soaking it in, learning from it, storing it away so that at some point, in some way, I’ll draw it out, dust it off, and write from it.
Wherever in the world you are, I hope you come up for air soon too.
Melbourne hope
Plums, punk, pinot
I knew as soon as I saw the photos. Yes, this was definitely the one. The orange and brown swirls, the turntable with vintage vinyl, the five cats who liked to visit. This caravan was the perfect place to meet my publisher’s deadline for rewrites on my novel.
I took the train two and a half hours north of Melbourne. The freedom and exhilaration of hitting the road always tastes so sweet. It would be my last taste for some time. I’m glad I didn’t know it as I walked through Bendigo, picking up a few days’ food and a bottle of spiced rum. The caravan was only twenty minutes’ walk from the centre of town. I remember the sun was hot, my bags heavy, my heart full. I would have a few days to write before my husband came up to join me: the perfect getaway.
The 70’s caravan was every bit as funky and fabulous as the photos. I popped the kettle on. I went through the records next to the turntable and selected Ike and Tina Turner. A snub-faced cat called Pearl sat on my lap as I pushed a cactus aside and set up my laptop on the table. ‘Nutbush City Limits’ filled the caravan.
Another self-imposed writing retreat, another step back into the Iceland of my novel. So just another week in my writing world, then.
It’s six weeks later and I can’t stop thinking of that caravan. I had no idea back then what was about to hit. Back in March I knew there was a virus, but no-one really could have predicted….well, this. This world we’re now in. I am extremely fortunate to be living in a house with a small garden, and to be sharing it with my husband and stepson. I’m not lacking touch, or company, or even an income, at least at this point. There were a few frantic weeks of the college I work at moving everything online, and believe me, this little technophobe had more than a few issues. But I’m lucky, and I know it. I just need to remember how to breathe when the anxiety swirls.
I skipped last month’s blog post. Didn’t even try to write one. It seemed so pointless in the face of everything. But I’m drinking down every story I can get on how people are handling this, and drawing strength from them. One friend is a nurse in the red dirt of far northern Australia; another a punk-loving mum from Rotterdam in the Netherlands. I read everything they write. We do the grocery shopping for our immune-compromised neighbour, and trade stories over the fence with soul music and mint juleps. Everyone is coping differently, but every story is worth telling.
In writing this I’m trying to focus on the comfort so as not to get overwhelmed by the chaos. My altar and bell jars of snake skins. Punk music and pinot noir. Handwritten letters. Fresh plums. Episodes of ‘International House Hunters.’ Playing bass. Rilke poetry. Liquorice tea. My chonky cat. Icelandic band Kaelan Mikla. Halloween tonight in the southern hemisphere. Being able to understand my friends’ messages in Dutch and German. My favourite Kali chant. Sunshine in my writing studio. Supportive emails from my agent and publisher. Meeting their deadline for my novel. And imagining my next writing retreat, when we’re able to move again, when we’re able to breathe.
I keep thinking about that caravan. The first thing I’m going to do when things stabilise, after rushing across Melbourne to sweep my beloved best friend into a massive bear hug, is to book this caravan again. I don’t even know what ‘stabilise’ means right now, so don’t ask me to clarify. But I do know I’m jumping on that V-Line train, and I’m going to open that retro door. I’m going to beckon in a cat or three, and open my notebook. And with Donna Summer crooning, I’m going to pour myself a rum, and start writing.
inkymouth 