My journal

The space between: journal reflections

Now and then it’s good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.

~ Guillaume Apollinaire

Golden Rose — Last chance to enjoy my Gold Bunny Rose, one of the first to flower in my garden

For the first time in my new temporary home I find some time to be here. It’s been a tough relocation — filled with complications, challenges, and situations that have set my teeth on edge. My first thought on opening this page was to write about the process of our relocation, but I found this post which was written about two weeks before we left our home in Adelaide. It was titled The space between what’s done and what’s yet to begin, and it reflects my thoughts at the time and brought to mind some lovely moments of just being.

I’m sharing it without editing as a journal reflection on that liminal space and as a small tribute to the final days in our old hometown. . .

Otters at the Adelaide Zoo — Saying farewell to the otters at the Adelaide Zoo.

. . .In two weeks, we will leave this place called home. We are packing up, closing down and getting reading to move on. And in this liminal space — between what’s done and what’s yet to begin, I’ve been busy with the practicalities and technicalities of integrating my work life and my passionate life story.

The busyness of finding solutions for integrating all of this into a neat new package —website, social media, a new sense of identity — has been consuming. So much so that I was forgetting to just be. The things that matter, the most important things, were taking a back seat.

What matters right now is to enjoy our final days here. In the midst of preparing to leave, there are still walks in nature, reading, and of course writing. Not the About me page or the list of services I’m offering or whether I should pin this blog post to a Pinterest board, but finding pleasure in the work of writing my story and being present right now in my life.

The Lane Vineyard — Vines ready for pruning at the Lane Vineyard, Hahndorf. Lunch in the Adelaide Hills with my best girl and amore mio

I understand that the practical aspects of how I will present myself to the world is important, but at the moment, it seems like it’s too much, too difficult to think about. So I’m taking a pause — crazy though it sounds with the movers turning up in thirteen days.

Serenity in the Himeji Japanese Garden — Tranquility in the Himeji Japanese Garden. A favourite place which always holds the space between

David Kundtz, in his book Quiet Mind stresses that stopping — whether for a moment or a month — can be the difference between simply surviving and thriving. To me, it’s like taking a deep breath, in order to remember who I am and what I want. I wrote a blog post about taking a moment to be still a while ago, but with all the activity (mind and body) happening at the moment, I lost sight of the benefits of what David calls ‘still points’. He says:

More than anything, one should have a feeling of freedom, a feeling of having no pressing needs (even though there are often pressing needs), and as complete a state of relaxation as is possible right now.

So the agenda for the next two weeks has been cleared of the technical, practical stuff that I know will be there, waiting for when the time is right and I’m stopping for a moment to regain my equilibrium. I’m going to focus on what matters right now.

West Beach, Adelaide — Beach walks in old haunts with Lily the princess dog

Some of that is to bid farewell to familiar haunts — walks in my favourite gardens and the beach, and as well as packing my precious belongings, finding time for writing and reading, as well as practicing my drawing and photography. Finding joy in being present in this space between.

The space between, — The space between what’s done and what’s yet to begin. Adelaide Botanic Garden wetlands looking serene

With the trauma of moving, I have only now come to appreciate the moments taken and enjoyed in that brief time before our departure. I hope that you too can find some stillness in your life to just be. Sometimes, doing nothing is the best thing to do.

Thanks Adelaide for some of the best moments of my life!

A shift in imagination

Autumn leaves resting on the earth
Questions, like designs
in a vivid carpet
ignite my imagination

The changing season like a shift in the imagination — Leaves from my nectarine tree, a carpet on the ground

For the past four weeks I’ve been showing up at my desk every morning to write in my journal. And today, I wrote a poem about autumn leaves and imagination. I’m proud that I showed up every day and even more chuffed that I WROTE A POEM!

There’s been a shift in imagination.

Home is . . .

Where we love is home, home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.

~ Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

The word ‘home’ is an emotive one for me as we prepare to leave this house. Yes, the SOLD sticker is on the board – a definitive sign that this house we have called home for the past 20 years, won’t be our home for much longer. Furniture, special objects, my books, are packed, ready for the journey to a new place. And because these things that made our house a home are gone, our children grown and flown the nest too, it’s a little disorienting.

Marking time

Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.

~ Dr Seuss

Marking time, appreciating the moment — Himeji Japanese Garden, Adelaide

The decluttering, packing, and the gruelling work schedule we set ourselves, is finally complete. The house is now for sale, in the hands of a selling agent and we feel that we are marking time until the auction.

‘Marking time’ originated in the military, where soldiers march in place, without moving in any direction. It’s also described as ‘motion without progress’. In other words, not doing anything important while you wait for something to happen. In our case, waiting until the sale of our house.

Gathering momentum

**Jacaranda trees transforming my street in November**

The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are.

~ John Pierpont Morgan

I can’t believe it’s almost five months since I’ve been in this space. The hiatus wasn’t forced, it’s more about procrastination and the belief that I was too busy to write. But those are just excuses.

A lot has happened in the interim. . .

Exploration and discovery

More important than the quest for certainty is the quest for clarity.

∼ Francois Gautier

For some time now Amore and I have been on a quest to discover a new place to live. Initially we thought that we’d find the perfect spot in our home state of South Australia, but we found no properties which matched our criteria as ideal ‘dream house’ locations. Admittedly, our criteria are pretty strict and although we love tons of things about South Australia, with hindsight, it was never going to make the cut. We decided to expand our exploration and discovery quest to the New South Wales and Victorian coasts.