A Journal Digestif

This could be another way I hold myself accountable for my writing. By making sure I stick to writing at least something every day. Even if it is on my notes app as I take the bus in to work, or quickly with the morning coffee. It will be a fortnightly post about the words that come to me when I am journalling.

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April 5th - It’s raining today in Sydney.

Time feels slow and syrupy. Like I have the space to move as glacially as possible. My housemate is camped out in her room nursing a cold that won’t leave and I am parked on the couch. Books and journals within reach. It’s an off day today. Rare for me recently. I’ve been picking up shifts at work. Trying to make money so I can save for visas, travel and expenses. I went to the grocery store this week and spent $80 on what was usually never that expensive. Maybe it was the dry ginger ale that did me in.

I am obsessed with people who get to live the slow life. Who toiled for the goodness that they now live in. For those who live within nature and have wild adventures around the world. I have many ideas sometimes so many that I don’t know how to do them all and so they never get done. But I think inching closer and closer to thirty makes me feral in a way I never was when I was in my twenties. I want it. I want the life I see. Not the life that other people have that I can catch glimpses of from the little squares. But I want the big life I envision.

I think about the goals I have set and the reminder that it’s a slow burn sometimes. That good things take time and energy. They require the nurture of time and also the room to expand and take up space. It’s hard when you are a person of action. Someone destined to remain moving and doing till the bones grow weary and even then I am sure I can find something to do. I am also a person who wonders a lot. The mind is never quiet. Not really. I wonder about what things will look like in the future. What the next step is. What the possibilities are if I succeed? But mostly I wonder about how to get to where I want to go. How do I move from where I am to where I can see myself?

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April 8th - I am obsessed with art.

I have just spent the better part of my afternoon camped in front of the television watching actors on actors by variety and so far every conversation has just been soul-stirring. The detail. The texture. The life. The delicacy and the attention that these people weave into their art are just so wonderful to me. Listening to them talk and break apart performances and pieces makes me realise why I love movies so much. The inherent nature of storytelling. The love. Just the love of craft, of art, of storytelling and of making sure they get it right but overall to make sure that they do it justice. To bring these characters to life, give them bones and flesh and dreams. Habits and quirks. To inhabit these spaces and just exhale. It’s wonderful to me. And just the language that they put into these films and these experiences.

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April 9th - It is Tuesday afternoon and work is quiet.

The weather is slowly starting to change here in Sydney. Summer days give way to the autumn winds and bring with them the first rains of the season. I have changed the furniture around so the large pot of chrysanthemum tea I just made is well within reach. It seems that for now, the couch is where I do my best work. Cozied up in sweatpants and cold toes tucked beneath me. I have a new book I cannot wait to fall into and the second one waiting for me to return to. It’s the water boiling in the kettle but to me, it sounds like the rain falling outside the window. The droplets clinging to the ceiling of my patio make me feel happy. they look like crystals as they catch the afternoon light and something about that small little icicle brings me joy.

I think about how this couch is now imprinted with me. Even though I have a perfectly good desk and chair set up behind me, something about sitting on the couch and typing makes me feel like today could be a good writing day.

I just finished reading the whole autumn section of American in Provence and now all I want to do is move to France and live in the countryside. the way of life, the stillness, the slow movement of time and living in the seasons just makes me swoon. It makes me want a piece of that for myself.