Tag: home

From Zurich to the Bush Capital

When I jump into the deep end of a pool, I can always dog paddle until I find my stroke. This is what life has taught me. I always get to the other side. I may not be a great swimmer but I am buoyant. Knowing this has served me well.

In 2008 I spent a year in Switzerland with my family. It was a crazy opportunity that came out of nowhere and I was willing to take the chance. Arriving in Zurich was like jumping off a diving board. The first week felt like a massive belly flop and I wondered whether I had made the right decision, not only for myself but for my family.  

It didn’t take us long to learn some of the idiosyncrasies of our new home. School starts before 8 a.m., shops close for lunch, trains and buses run on time. There were other quite annoying things such as having to do your washing on a Friday (everyone has a designated day), no flushing toilets after 10 p.m. (house rules) and no paracetamol available except at chemists which are closed on Sundays.

I was quite cocky before we left. Why would I have trouble understanding the Swiss, when I understand Swabian and Austrian dialects?  What could be so difficult? Well, maybe vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation as a start! It took me much longer than I expected to follow simple conversations. Nor did I expect the Swiss to frown upon my high German. After all, it is meant to be the official language in the German cantons.

As we became increasingly familiar with how things operated, we began to appreciate the small things of life. Wherever we were in the countryside, we’d find a cat in a field, ears pricked up, ready to pounce. We could even spot them from the train! Why do Swiss cats do this and not other cats? It remained a charming mystery.

If land didn’t have a dwelling on it, there were cows grazing there, kept in place by movable electric fences. Behind our nearest bus shelter were three cows and behind them were rows of multi-storey flats. If it wasn’t cows grazing, it was goats. These animals could be found in any of the suburbs of large towns. I grew to love this proximity to farm animals. It made for a slower and much calmer pace.

In 2024, I jumped off the diving board once more, this time to move to Canberra. It wasn’t anywhere near as disorientating as moving to Switzerland but it did feel much more permanent. I had bought a townhouse, changed jobs and began the process of acclimatising. At least I can speak the language here and know how society operates but it still takes time to adjust.

At first, I was confused by the wide streets and wanted to turn into the oncoming traffic not realising that the lanes were one way. Then there were all the roundabouts and roads that go around in circles. I have been caught out more than once with the all-day 40 km school zones with no flashing lights. In fact, I have never had as many fines as I have since moving here. The rules can be quite perplexing!

In Canberra, I can buy a bottle of wine at the supermarket, just as I could in Switzerland. However, when I go to work across the border, this is no longer possible. Lately, I have begun to see other similarities with where we lived in Switzerland. Every morning I drive past ducks that may waddle across the street, only 100 m from a main arterial road. Near the first roundabout as you enter Canberra coming from Sydney, there is a small herd of Angus cows grazing in a paddock that will eventually be turned into medium density housing. I had to laugh when I first saw them.

My drive to work takes me along a stretch of a freeway that has paddocks on both sides. There are agisted horses, cows and small farms all within a ten-minute drive from the centre of the city. I hope this doesn’t change in my lifetime. Next to one of these farms there is a small ‘shop’ that works on an honesty system. Here, I can buy eggs, cheese and honey on my way home. It reminds me of a place in Switzerland which was a ten-minute walk up the hill from our place. We could buy seasonal fruit from the farmer who had a wooden box on the side of the road where we would leave money. Honesty boxes could be found all over Switzerland including deep in forests where 2 Franks could be exchanged for a swig of Absinthe!

Canberra has retained the feel of a large country town with plenty of green space. No wonder it prides itself on being the Bush Capital. Maybe I recognised some of its similarities to Switzerland which I grew to love. I think about this more often as I approach my second anniversary living in Canberra. The longer I spend here, the more I appreciate its beauty, surrounded by farms, nature reserves and the stunning Brindabellas in the distance. I’ve found my rhythm once more; steady, buoyant and much more at home.

Painting the Harbour Bridge and Other Never-Ending Chores

https://www.pexels.com/photo/sydney-harbour-bridge-4023897/

There is a myth that the Harbour Bridge is continually painted without a break. The story goes that when painters finish at one end, they go back and start at the beginning. This is an urban myth. The reality is that sections need to be painted at differing intervals. Still the myth persists.

Cleaning my house feels like the story about painting the harbour bridge. No sooner do I finish one task, the next is already waiting for me. Now I don’t know whether the painters enjoy their job, but I certainly don’t enjoy mine. I’d much rather be at my desk writing, reading a good book or taking the dog for a walk. Vacuuming, not so much.

Yesterday I vacuumed, did the washing, folded the clothes and put them away, packed and unpacked the dishwasher, changed the sheets and put the rubbish out. Today I will clean the bathroom, iron some work gear, tidy up yet again and water the plants. There’s much more on the list, but I know I won’t get to it. Already the floor looks like it could do with another going over.

Tomorrow the working week begins. When I get home, I will cook, tidy the kitchen, do the dishes and clean out the kitty litter. There won’t be time for much more. The rest of the week will follow in the same vein and then will come the weekend when the big clean will happen once more. Whoever came up with the phrase ‘rinse and repeat’ is a genius. It applies to so much of our daily lives.

Yet while I grumble about my daily chores, I also remember my mother’s lot. When I was a child, she washed clothes in a wooden tub using soap and a washboard to scrub them clean. It was backbreaking work. We didn’t have a vacuum, so cleaning the floor was a matter of a daily sweep with a broom and weekly mopping. Our dishes were washed in a plastic tub and dried with a tea-towel. There were no modern appliances in our house. Cleaning was drudgery.

I have to remind myself that I have it so much easier now. It takes me less than three hours to clean my house top to bottom, which is no more than 2% of all the time available in a week. Viewed in this way, it is hardly an imposition. As with so much of life, it is the attitude to the task that makes the difference. And so, the Bridge gets painted, my house gets cleaned, and I am blessed that life keeps moving on.

Rescue, reclaim and write!

Whenever I move house, the first thing I set up is my desk. It has to be in the right position, preferably in front of a window. I love looking out when I am trying to think of the right word or phrase to express exactly what I am trying to say. Looking at a wall is stifling, no matter how many lovely post cards or pictures I have placed there.

I have had many desks in my life, starting with an ancient desk that my parents bought me when I was six or seven. I loved sitting there with an ancient Remington typewriter perched upon it. It made me feel important, like a real writer. At that desk, I typed my first stories and contemplated the idea of becoming an author. I couldn’t think of anything more magical than writing of lands far away, where anything was possible, and where readers could explore places unlike those they have ever encountered. I still have that dream. 

Since then, I have had pretty desks, utilitarian desks, large and small desks, old and more modern desks, desks that I have loved and ones I have loathed. My last one should have been perfect, except it was far too low for me to feel comfortable. No matter what I tried, it just didn’t feel right. I dreamt of a desk that was made just for me and had all the right dimensions.

Serendipitously, I met Thomas Fox at a local market. When I saw his woodwork, I knew he was the person who could design and make the desk I was after. He is an artisan with an eye for form and style. I wanted a desk with sensuous curves and a surface that would connect me to the age and beauty of the wood. I wanted a desk I could love, not just for its utility but for its inherent beauty, a desk to caress like a lover.

After months of refinement, we settled on a design. Thomas went to work on translating those ideas into something tangible and exquisitely elegant. Several months later, the desk arrived, ready to have its final polish and placement in my study. I took pleasure in hearing about the reclaimed wood he used, its provenance, and how the unique pieces of wood were rescued from iconic buildings around Bega. While its latest form as a desk is new, parts of it are over 150 years old. Each section of the desk has its own story, and its character has developed over the years from previous uses. It has come to me as a palimpsest, waiting for me to imprint meaning without erasing its history. I foresee a lasting, rich collaboration between us.

Courage to share his story

Photo: Andreas F. Borchert

He approached us after casting his vote. A stranger who needed to share his story, to explain himself and his actions. A stranger who trusted that two women supporting an Aboriginal Voice would listen as he gave voice to his own story. 

He began to tell us of his Irish mother, a woman he loved dearly. She always claimed he was ‘fey’, alluding to his intuition and ability to sense things from beyond. He showed a keen interest in his Irish roots and had wanted to take his mother back, but this was not to be. After she died, he decided to make the trip on his own.

He sought out the places that were dear to his mother and met long lost family. The more time he spent on his mother’s Country, the more he felt the place holding him, welcoming a lost son. This feeling finally overcame him when he entered a small church in the village where his mother was born. As he stood at the baptismal font where she and generations of her family had been baptised, he succumbed to a flood of tears, held back for the longest time.

A gentle hand touched his shoulder. It was the parish priest.

‘Welcome home, son,’ he said, and our traveller felt he had truly arrived.

It was a moment akin to transcendence, a knowing that this was where his roots were, no matter where he would live out the rest of his life.

I too have experienced this sense of homecoming. A homecoming to a place that I can no longer call home, but a place where I feel the pull of my roots stronger than any other place I know. It is a feeling of merging and becoming one with the land, the trees and the birds that roost within them. I expand to take in all that is and experience both rapture and rupture between me and what lies beyond. Words cannot capture what happens in these moments, they will always stay ineffable.

Like my stranger, after experiencing what the Irish call ‘Thin Places’, where the veil between heaven and earth momentarily falls away to reveal the transcendent, I have but an inkling of Aboriginal people’s connection to Country. But like the man I met ever so briefly, I know where I stand and why I have chosen to take that stand.