A quiet month

Of finding glimpses of beauty within the mundane

A couple of days after the winter solstice, I drive west after work. The sun glows as it sinks, seeping out between drifts of dark clouds and spilling a warm orange glow across the city. A sunset so rich and deep and beautiful that people stop at the top of railway bridges to take photos while walking their dogs.

There’s hope on the horizon; positive change is coming my way. After a slow month and a bumpy start to the year, the solstice marks a shift in light and I feel a lightness around me too. Good things are coming.  

It’s nice, this. This sunset, this driving through suburbs, this giddy, hopeful feeling.

It’s been a month of torrential rain every weekend and being bed-bound for weeks thanks to a shock of illnesses. Cancelled plans lay like detritus around me. 

Some of the things I’ve missed this month include farewell drinks for a friend heading overseas, a friend introducing films she’s programmed, a coastal walk, calls to London, a long weekend away in the mountains, and a solstice swim in the sea.

I have little energy for anything beyond listening to audiobooks and drifting in and out of sleep.

Until sickness hits, it’s far too easy to take daily mundanities for granted.

But the month began with a weekend of being reunited with a car of my own. Of cautiously parking it in the least flood-prone streets of my neighbourhood and driving a friend to a cosy Italian lunch. 

It began with sneaking in a visit to the Sydney Biennale on its penultimate weekend. Seeing art from around the world and close to home, woven through the White Bay Power Station.

It’s a building familiar to me from driving past it on buses and in cars over years and years, while always wondering what was inside. I had always assumed it would remain off-limits.

Now, we admire the patina of old bricks and step through large, industrial doors. Contemporary art – textiles, videos, paintings, conceptual pieces somewhere in between – is interspersed with historical remnants of industry. Now and then. Change and power and culture and bodies and machines.

It’s amazing to see a forgotten building brought back to life. To keep finding new parts of this familiar city to explore.

Walking through the exhibitions near us is a small girl, trailing her parents. She looks up and around as she goes, soaking everything in. She has a lime green backpack on, with a toy hippo poking out the top.

I think about her and the sense of pure joy she seemed to contain. Stuck within the confines of four walls, it’s all too easy to feel despondent. Sick of being sick. Bored of being bored. But I do my best to look for the moments of magic woven through the month too.

Sunshine outside my window as I drift in and out of sleep. A warm mug of tea between my hands. Once again having a car to drive, even if it’s only to the doctors and pharmacy. The ability to get where I need to go.

Friends check in to see how I am. Share voice notes that make me laugh. Offer to fetch items from the supermarket or the chemist for me. Sneak my favourite desserts into bags of essential goods. Unexpectedly turn up on my doorstep with a bouquet of wattle in their arms.

A reminder – again, again – that we can not do life on our own. As much as independence is praised, the beauty of people supporting you in a time of need cannot be overstated.

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The winter solstice comes and goes. A group of us meet for our ritualistic catch-up combining a northern hemisphere brunch and a southern hemisphere dinner. A lot is going on in all of our lives. And so the solstice does what it needs to, bringing a moment of pause. To sit and be with each other, sharing love and tender care from either end of the world. 

And so I begin – slowly but surely – to feel better. Well enough to visit a pasta restaurant in its final weeks before closing.

We’re tucked into a corner booth at the back, surrounded by red velvet cushions and wood-panelled walls. We talk of big life decisions and the passing of time. We’ve done so much life together already that this moment of change is also just another moment in time. A helpful reminder.

We soak up every last drop of pasta sauce. Pause. Then order dessert. 

Another moment of magic, squeezed into the everyday. 

A friend has good news about her visa so it feels appropriately Australian to drive to the beach to celebrate. Even at the brisk start of winter.

The weather holds and we go for a walk, enjoying the soft fall of sand beneath our feet. Storm clouds remain dark on the horizon but spots of blue sky tentatively begin to appear above us. 

It feels good to flush out the chaos of the last month, breathing in the saltwater air and feeling the wind whir around our faces.

The next day, I return to the office for the first time in a month. Commuting on the train feels joyous. The walk from the station to the office is a delight. The office buzzes and thrums and it feels good, so good, to be amongst it all once again. 

I will not take this for granted, I think.

I will not take this for granted.

There’s much to look forward to in the coming weeks and months. Perhaps this dose of the deeply mundane has been the perfect reminder that, amidst the fun and the shock of the new, surrendering to moments of gentle pause is necessary too.

The wattle continues to stand proudly in a vase in my room.

Still bright, still cheerful, still softly fragrant.

A lingering warmth.