I take my coffee in the backyard. It’s relaxing watching the bees busy themselves; keeping a lavender calendar. I know if I sit long enough and still enough I might be lucky and witness a blue wren visiting the bird bath or ponder a bull ant’s long patrol journey over the brickwork.

I sip and listen to the soundtrack of children playing at the primary school. It’s one of my favourite sounds. Audio balm. For someone so used to revisiting the past, these sensations plant me in the moment. I am transfixed. This is a chain in my routine. It is fleeting. My mind is floating. Like the flat white foam, I spread my attention.

Being alive can have its perks. Especially when paired with the rich treasury of quiet. My world is simply this backyard. I’m a part of the furniture of nature. A little oxygen log in the ancient ecosystem. I’m pleased to play the role and add my colour to the rainbow.

The bees are beautiful. They bumble. They have fuzz. They seem harmless. I adore how focused they are. They hover and hum. A perfect engine. A yellow and black striped song of evolution.

I love my life, sometimes. I appreciate the freedom it affords and the lack of pressure I’ve negotiated. It’s just a little time to sit in my little kingdom and ponder the meaning of nothing. Oh, and smell the lemon verbena.

At night I turn out the lights and gaze up at the stars. When I turned thirteen mum got me glow-in-the-dark sticker stars. Being from the 1990s, they still glow. The moon, the satellites, the Southern Cross, the pot. It’s a consistent constellation. My scattershot through-line of sparkles. When I’m lost, when I’m low, I can gaze up at my self-made sky and feel quite massive and silly and loved. It’s all part of a rich, complex and delicate egosystem.

I worked and now I must rest. It’s all any of us bees can do.

🐝

Published in Artizine: little worlds, The North-West coast of Tasmania’s newest culture magazine. You can read the rest of the issue including my piece about table tennis HERE. Issue #3 has just been released and I have written about sideburns and tall poppy syndrome, you can see it HERE.

It’s poetry month! A slice of my piece about chocolate milk is on display outside the Hobart library! This could be my big break. (Read the full poem HERE.)

A psychologist in Melbourne once told me that poetry was the original advertising… that back in the day you would be more likely to see poetry on display and now catchy three word slogans for ad companies has replaced it. It’s cool to take the power to be surreal back.

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