I was speaking with a friend the other day who is a writer. She said that she wanted to write something about these days - these very unusual days, ones that we have never seen before - but that she she didn’t know where to start.
Since the end of 2019 events have been moving faster in real time than I’ve ever known. There has been so much to observe, so much to learn. And at the same time, we have all needed to survive.
So at what point does the writer (or poet, or communicator of any kind) simply stop in the middle of this storm that we’re all weathering and create some kind of account of what has happened, what has been witnessed - even as the winds still rage and the sun still glows hot and red?
This requires sitting quietly and being on the move at the same time - not an easy thing to do.
But there are so many stories. So many. I hope that we can all come together one day, as in olden times, and tell our stories to one another. Face to face, with respect for the telling and for the listening, and with all devices switched off.
Is this hoping for too much?
On February 1st, three separate bushfires joined into one on top of Tantawangalo Mountain, just to the south of our farm. Pushed by strong winds, this wall of fire raced down the mountain and tore through our property.
36 hours before this happened, I left my place behind. The advice from both the Fire Service and the Police was to evacuate. If I stayed, they might have to risk their own lives to save mine, and turn their backs on their work of saving houses and properties.
On the night of the fire I looked across the valley from the house where I was sheltering. 35 kilometres in the distance there was home, with a red-gray glow all above it.
It was a good, hot burn. But my house is built on the lowlands near the banks of Devil’s Creek, where the winds don’t blow so hard. The fires died out just after they went through my place, leaving a clear, untouched circle around my house, garden and orchard.
So it is in this landscape that I now work and live. And contemplate the present, just as it is, here and now. And chop the wood, haul the water, boil the pot.
Many of the trees around my place were burnt pretty badly on the outside, scorched black for metres up their trunks. And for days the skies rained with dead leaves, carpeting the ground, leaving the tree tops stark and bare. I didn’t know what would happen to them, but I feared the worst.
But then I got a surprise. Out of their blackened bark, the trees began sending out green shoots, as a way of taking in the sun’s energy once again. They literally created “jackets” for themselves that were also solar collectors - ingenious!
About a week ago I went for a drive up the coast to the north, about halfway to Sydney, where the fires had passed a month or so before they came to Tantawangalo.
And I saw many trees that had jacketed themselves, just as mine had. And that had then, one day, thrown off the old burnt bark along with the new green shoots, and now stood there, white and naked and glistening, ready to face the sun and the winds full-on again, ready for anything.
And now I’m thinking: have these trees been speaking to me in metaphors?
I know that all plans are cancelled, for now until somewhere in the future, perhaps. But what kind of future we will have is always uncertain, and even more so coming out of these present times.
That’s the big picture, and I can live with it.
When I think of missing this summer in the UK and Europe, of course I think of the shows that I won’t play, the musicians that I won’t collaborate with, the places I won’t see and so on.
But much more than this, it is the people - all those friends who make my travels possible, who give me a home, who share everything with me including, most importantly, their personal selves. Their daily lives, their dreams and aspirations, their questions and the answers that they have found so far. These things remain with me, more than anything else.
I know how to be alone. In many ways it’s no problem for me. And perhaps it’s the same for you.
But sometimes the configuration is just right. Sometimes it’s with other people that the very best in us - the part of us that we have nurtured in silence - comes out into the open. Yes, sometimes that's how it goes.
So my prayer is for you (and all who are close to you) to be well and safe until we meet again on the other side … wherever that may be. And I will so miss seeing you this summer!
Best wishes to you,
Michael
