31 August 2020

Combining Dharawal and western concepts of time, it’s the last day of Tugarah Gunya’marri here. Tomorrow Murrai’yunggory starts, when Ngoonungi, flying foxes, gather. I love this: they are ‘sky-dancing’. Miwa Gawaian, waratah, will start to bloom, its magnificent red flower demanding your attention whether you know its significance or not.

30 August 2020

I braced myself as we landed in London, sure that the past would dog me with its scaly wings and noxious smells. But 35 years had transformed the place beyond recognition, and my memories with it. Instead of harassing, they looked up at me with limpid eyes, wanting a pat.

29 August 2020

From the blue sky and gritty road a memory appears of London, in 2015. Walking down to Maida Vale, to the café with its wall of dazzling liqueurs. A grandmother with a tender baby in a pram, I am an alien element in that booming room of concrete and glass.

27 August 2020

The magpie glides in and lands halfway up the tree’s canopy, pauses, then hops to its nest at the top. Underneath, we blow rainbow bubbles. We make tunnels in the sandpit and climb in the cubby. The toddler pushes the four-year-old down the slide. A game that bears endless repetition.

26 August 2020

Even when she was nearly blind my mother would eke her way through the death notices. Now that she has gone I do it for her, noting the names lovingly consigned to graves by grieving families. I am assailed by memories of childhood and since. Kindnesses offered, conversations left unspoken.

24 August 2020

I thought I saw rain outside, but it was only the glimmer of a car’s headlights on the street plants. I’ll never tire of rain now, senses sharpened by those months when we waited wretchedly for any grey cloud to break. At night, wallabies lapped noisily at the chestnut trough.

23 August 2020

In the city park grunting men play football and families push prams. At the shops, the smell from the Vietnamese café spreads tender tendrils through the air. At the market the bread woman has one loaf left for me. I walk past the demolished carwash site. Its trees have vanished.