York in Autumn

After over a year of not seeing some of my best friends, it was about time we had a proper face to face catch up. The fact that it was sunny and a lot warmer than November 1st usually is was an added bonus! Al fresco coffee overlooking the river was first on the list, before a meander around the city and a walk around the edge on the old city walls until lunch. A wonderful day in a beautiful city, and I even stopped to appreciate the moorland on the way home. 

Truly Australian

There are a ton of adventures and experiences I have yet to write about from my travels in Far North Queensland, but even though I'm back down in Melbourne I got a good dose of the wild today at Healesville Sanctuary. The sanctuary primarily houses animals native to Australia, many of which are also endemic to the country, and even though some are abundant in the wild, others are most definitely endangered. I'm making the most of being able to see all of them before I head home to a land where they don't exist!

Indescribable

For most of September I lived and worked in a lodge in the Daintree Rainforest, in Far North Queensland. It was in the middle of nowhere, in an area with no mains electricity or waste systems, and surrounded by thick rainforest, creeks and the coral sea, home to cassowaries, crocodiles and the Great Barrier Reef.

In short, it was incredible. 

This is it.

Those of you who know me and my instagram account well will know that one of my favourite things to watch and photograph are sunsets. And because of the lack of high buildings here in Shepparton, the sunsets are often spectacular. They have been great scenic motivation for my evening runs, and last night was no exception, on what was to be my last night in this town for a pretty long time, possibly ever.

This morning, as procrastination from packing up the rest of my stuff, I'm sitting here on pinterest and checking out some other blogs, and I came across a post about sunsets from the writer of this blog. What she said is completely how I feel about sunsets. They give me a quiet, content sense of nostalgia and of something being over. They're one last reminder of how beautiful the light can be before night falls. 

She says:

"To me, the sinking sun is a reminder. It tells me to make it count, this day, this second. It is a gentle memento mori, repeating the same chant. To live now. This is it."

Quite a fitting way to end my time here, and a good reminder for me as I move on to my next adventure.

The First Day/De Eerste Dag

      De eerste dag                                                                                                                    The first day
 
      Als 's morgens het licht                                                                                When in the morning, light
      door de gordijnen dringt                                                                             enters through the curtains
      smelten je laatste dromen.                                                                         your last dreams melt away.

      Er klinken geluiden                                                                                              You can hear sounds
      uit de achtertuinen                                                                                                  from the backyards
      een buurman stapelt stenen                                                                   a neighbour piles up some rocks
      een rammelende kettingkast.                                                                                a rattling chain.

      Het is vandaag de eerste dag                                                                           Today, it is the first day
      om met iets te beginnen                                                                                          to start something
      waar niemand aan begon.                                                                                  nobody ever started.

This was a poem I received in a letter from a friend, and the translation she supplied me with. Even out of the original language I think it's a beautiful poem, with a great message. All too often we begin our days with regret that we have to get out of bed, go to work, do chores, look at our long 'to do' lists, but we should be rising and looking forward to what our day has to offer, what we can achieve, how we can bring happiness into our lives and those of others. And no matter that it feels mundane to us, each time we start a day, it's a day that no one else has started exactly like that. Which is quite special.

photo here

Magic/Photograph

"When I look back on my ordinary, ordinary life / I see so much magic though I missed it at the time."

"It's just another story caught up in another photograph I found."

-Jamie Cullum, Photograph

Listening to this one song the other day sparked two sets of varying thoughts...

The first was just another simple reminder, one of many that I'm finding pop up everywhere, that we must live in the moment and appreciate what we have, what we're doing and who we're with. Looking back and seeing the magic of all of that could be great, but surely experiencing it now would be better?

The second was about photographs as objects themselves, and how they really can say a thousand words or more. They capture only a fraction of time but can be an expression of thousands of thoughts. I like how we might have no physical connection to a photograph, but we can feel drawn to it and like we understand it all the same, as if it was taken for us. How can a 'closed' representation of one moment in time of a place we've never been, people we've never met, things we've never seen with our own eyes be so 'open' and ready to be interpreted by anyone who sees it? Connotations are of course what often forms most of our impression of a photograph, the majority of which are human nature/instinct or are learned through our upbringing and society. But then we all have our own connotations relating to our personal experience. I love the million ways a simple photo can be interpreted or imagined, and the simultaneity of this and the fact that it's 'done', 'finished'. The point at which these two opposites collide is that moment when we understand the picture, and the story caught up in it.

photo here

Hummingbird

I first came across Papyrus cards a few months ago when looking for a thank you card for a special person. Well crafted stationery, notebooks and cards have always been amongst my favourite things, and the Papyrus collection was just my cup of tea; beautiful designs perfect for hand written messages.

It was only after buying this particular card that I noticed the message of the company and its symbol, a hummingbird...

"Legends say that hummingbirds float free of time, carrying our hopes for love, joy and celebration. The hummingbird's delicate grace reminds us that life is rich, beauty is everywhere, every personal connection has meaning and that laughter is life's sweetest creation."

Hummingbirds are one of the world's smallest bird species, but can travel huge distances in their seasonal migrations, fly backwards and hover in mid air, and their wings can flutter at a speed too fast for us to see them clearly. These characteristics of the hummingbird remind us that we must keep moving, whether physically or mentally, and be persistent in moving towards our goals. We can look back on the past but cannot remain there, and should savour the moment we are in and appreciate what surrounds us in the present. And we should ensure our energy is being used in a positive way, to enable us to enjoy life and all it has to offer.

Whether you are into finding meaning and symbols in nature or not, I think that in a world of fast paced, technology driven interaction, we could all do with a bit of the Papyrus message every now and again. 

photos here and here

Home

So finally, I am making things happen in terms of steps towards another year in Australia. I have moved out to Shepparton, almost 200km pretty much due North of Melbourne, and have so far done one week of apple picking. In chatting to other people travelling around Australia and hearing their impressions, recommendations and tales of where they've been living since arriving here, I've begun to think about how this country has become our home.

Only now, by leaving for an as yet undefined block of time, can I begin to realise that Melbourne has become a home for me. I find the concept of 'home' interesting. I feel like we sometimes seem to be of the belief that only one home, or one true home, can exist in our minds, hearts and lives, but why is that? Of course, any one of our previous of current resting places might feel like the one we feel most strongly drawn to at any one time, but I think we can have many homes, and we can allow this 'top' home to be an entity that is constantly changing to adapt to our constantly evolving lives. Whether that adaptation be geographical, physical or emotional, I like the idea that 'home' is flexible. It means, for me, someone with a desire to eplore, that maybe I can make a home anywhere, and although my previous homes are elsewhere, they still exist as long as I want or need them to, and can always be revisited.

So through our lives we don't hop from one home to another, but rather we add to our list of homes, we collect them, to whatever extent we wish, and the important and necessity of each individual home is fluid.

This way, the whole world can become our home if we wish, which of course, in a way, it already is.

Beautiful Australian countryside, which actually looks quite similar to the area surrounding my home in England.

Photo found here

Happy Easter!

As a non-Christian, I don't usually celebrate Easter in a religious fashion, but I will gladly take any excuse to have a family get together and eat some chocolate, and I found that hiding eggs for a two year old to discover the next morning is almost as hunting for them!