5 / The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness

I look to the future and I see the sun, shining through trees

“Through the waters spilled by the spring, I was remade. Forth I fared, a new plant with new leaves in a new time. The stars were there, and I was set to climb.”

― Dante Alighieri

Dear friends,

I hope this letter finds you well. How have you been? If we’ve been distant, in moments or in space, it has not been intentional. The following are some select updates from times recently past, in no particular order.

January 2022:

A wise man once said, time is a flat circle, that “people are essentially doomed to repeat the same cycles again and again without ever really changing”. What have we learnt these past few years? Maybe something. Maybe nothing. The world turns, and we along with it.

Recently I realised that I will have been at ABC News Digital for 5 years this year, and exactly half those years have been spent during this current COVID-19 pandemic, working from home for the most part. How long can this go on for? Forever?

Lately I’ve been working on a project that looks at the rich history of this astoundingly magical continent which we’ve somehow found ourselves living on in the year 2022 through the lens of Deep Time. Sometimes it feels as though we’re living in a geological time-frame.

The last time we spoke we were in the thick of it, the deep dark forest of lock-down. Nineteen months flashes by in an instant, doesn’t it? We were still living in New Farm. Now we’re out at Ferny Hills due to our rent being hiked up by an almost criminal $60/week. We also tried to buy a place, but then the housing market shot up by hundreds of thousands of dollars and we were priced out.

So here we are, cruising again, hoping our (environmentally friendly) crypto holdings go up 📈 instead of the current trend of way down 📉.

Whatever, it’s just money. It’s just life, ticking away.

April 2022:

I lost track of time again and here we are a few months down the track. Thinking back. What have we done? Where does the time go?

We spoke about National Novel Writing Month last time didn’t we? Somehow I was inspired (read: stupid enough) to try it again in November of last year, after swearing off writing month-long novels quite some time ago. It was my 11th such manuscript attempt, since I first heard about this crazy novel writing idea right out of uni. Let’s see, 11 x 50,000 words = a bit over half a million words 😳. Stay tuned later for a brief excerpt of this latest adventure entitled Ally Acid & the Crystal Hearts.

It’s about a girl called Ally who finds some strange friends living with nature in the forest and then goes on an adventure to defeat a dark shadowy force sweeping the land and destroying everything green and life-giving in its path. I’ve been re-reading the draft lately, and it’s actually not half bad.

It took me over 20,000 words to realise what genre I was writing in, after stumbling upon an article about it online. They call it Solarpunk and it’s kind of like Cyberpunk, but there’s lots of plants and trees and it’s all sustainable and optimistic and stuff and everyone gets their energy from the sun. A bright new future, that kind of thing. Some kind of utopian vision. And anyway, it made me think of this Sheryl Crow song called Soak Up The Sun, which I decided is the novel’s theme song. Give it a listen.

June 2021:

Finally we were allowed to travel interstate and do the trip we’d initially planned to do in 2019. We went to see family in Hobart, Tasmania. Vada’s first time visiting. Vada’s first time on a plane!

Tassie travels

We stayed at my cousin’s house up the mountain at Fern Tree. We frequented the Fern Tree Tavern most days and caught up with family and friends. We drove up Kunanyi peak and walked above the clouds. We trekked a woodland path to see a massive waterfall. Vada beat me at chess on a giant chess board in town. We fed some wallabys and kangaroos at the sanctuary.

I really 💖 Tasmania. I want to go back, sometime soon.

Now:

Days keep rolling on. I’ve been working from home since Omicron. Slowly going slightly mad perhaps, but pressing on regardless.

I remember when I was a kid and my Mum turned 40. That age seemed so far away. Strange to realise how quickly right around the corner creeps up.

Anyway, here’s the epilogue from my novel as promised.

See you in THE FUTURE ✨

Some day the sun will rise upon a new world. Bountiful forests will spring up eternal across the globe. A lasting equilibrium will emerge from which our new dawn will rise. We will no longer plunder this land nor exploit or harm its inhabitants in any way. We will live in harmony within the bounds of our life-giving planet. We will harness the power of the sun along with a multitude of other ever-renewing energy sources provided by nature. We will never forget the lessons of the past nor fail to fight back any encroaching return to our old destructive ways. We will remember the path that brought us home. Together this future will be ours. Together we will awaken and watch with new eyes the dawning sun rise up over mountains and waters. We need only believe this day will come — and bring it into being.

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