Crest.

Welcome friends! I hope you are well, whatever 'well' means for you in June 2021, which has a mammoth amount of baggage trailing behind it. Perhaps time to cut some of it loose? This week I wrote the blog on paper first, a pretty novel experience considering how many times I use back space and often delete whole paragraphs when I type directly into the website. I'm on day 16 of my time here in Perth, and a lonely feeling has crept in to be transparent with you. However, that's what I asked for when I made this a reality, time alone. I'm staring down the barrel of 60 more days of just me and the occasional drop in of my one friend here and as a consequence this time feels like learning how to run. I don't mean run for the first time when you're a kid, I mean run when you're a 28yr old who has residual back pain from a car accident and a penchant for mash potato. A lot of people who have learnt (of which, I am not one) to run, talk about pushing through 'the barrier'. When your'e jogging and you're at that point where it gets uncomfortable, your breathing starts to labour and the push to keep moving forward becomes more challenging than waking up at 6am when you're bed is warm but your room is cold #ideal. Today, and perhaps for the next few days, I think I'm going to be pushing at the door of the barrier. I've never lived on my own before, it's so unbelievably quiet. Not sound wise, I quite literally have noise surrounding me at all times (by choice). Always noise. Music, podcasts, phone calls, tv, youtube, guided meditations. But today the silence is alarmingly loud. Typically, H is around, and living with H is not like living with 'the girl next door' who quietly goes about their business; you only know they were home because there is an extra plate in the dishwasher and the shower has condensation. The full scope and breadth of the human experience is encountered living with H, there's music, chat, laughter, movement, meals, guests and constant re-arranging of furniture. But here, I'm totally and completely left to my own devices to create all of those things for myself. Two nights ago E came over for dinner, and as a result I'm on a bit of a low because the event has passed. As my mum says, 'joy lies in the anticipation not the event.' Which I find to be unbelievably true in my current state. The preparation for, lead up, arrival and unfolding of an event is where all the 'good stuff' is, it's the last 30 mins and the aftermath that presents the emotional challenge. And that dear reader, is another form of 'barrier'. Here, as people say when they push through the running barrier, a dinner, an important life event, or for me right now, loneliness- we eventually make it to the other side. The best visual representation of how this feels is the climb of a big surf break. The wave is mounting for the moments before it comes to a head; the crest. Soon, it will start to curl and wind, showing specks of white (which I discovered is scattered light as the water dissipates). Then, with the tones of an ambient thundering, it will break. Relief. It will roll over in on itself, turning and spinning just as it should- then, after the commotion of the rumble, it will wash up onto the shore. Drawing slow and steady, back to the collective pool of the great wide blue. This metaphor, or visual rather, is to say that yes, right now things feel hard, like a big climb uphill, and breaking over the crest of the thing you're pushing through is going to feel tumultuous and messy, but the calm and settle after will be disarmingly worth it. I've been learning to find some sense of levity though in this time, which is very freeing. I walk for an hour or two every day after work, I've been cooking more adventurous meals, listening to podcasts on things I don't already know about (a very uncomfortable space for me!). I've been dancing around the lounge room to Ngaiire's new song Closer and I've been writing for over an hour each day. One of the writing prompts last week was to list 20 things you love doing, and try to do 10 of them this week. It was pretty hilarious actually because you had to write the 20 things, and then you found out what you were supposed to do with them. If I had known that it was 'meant' to involve things you don't do that often but love, I would have maybe thought outside the box a bit more. Here is my list (read til the end, there is a point to this rambling story!) 1 Buttering and eating good quality bread

2 Walking around my new hood

3 Curling my hair after it's just been dyed

4 Getting into a freshly made bed

5 My cousins kids running to greet me

6 A good espresso martini

7 Showering

8 Getting tattoos

9 Watering and dusting my plants

10 Saving for something I really want

11 Tidying my house

12 Hugging my friends when they arrive to brunch

13 Video chatting with D&A the best duo of all time

14 Eating a beef dynamic duo from Grill'd (the second greatest collab of all time)

15 Washing my face first thing in the morning

16 Having people read my blog and it creating conversation

17 L answering the phone in the specific way she says 'hellloooooo'

18 Sex

19 Drinking that first sip of coffee

20 Listening to Beyonce's Coachella set I have literally (with the exception of a few) listed my daily life in Melbourne. And that is why this time feels so hard, because of course living alone was going to be uncomfortable. Of course I was going to feel totally solo here. Obviously it wasn't going to be an easy dream boat 80 days where everything is smooth and pleasant. I, and I think a lot of us, are so demanding. We want to transform now. We want a new life now. We want new hobbies now. Interesting friends, now. Information uploaded to our brain without having to read or research, now. Money, now. But this, this is a slow burn. And as the wave rises to meet me, and I prep for the roll over (which will probably come in the form of me calling my nana and telling her I want to come home), something will happen. I just know it. A opportunity, an experience, a meeting; something that will make me take a big inhale and say 'ahh, this is what I came here for' (and this is why I didn't get it 'now') Thank you as always for reading on my little platform of self expression. I hope you have one too. M x

Daily Ceremony acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the traditional custodians of the land we work on, and we pay our respects to elders past, present and emerging.

A special thanks to my beautiful friends for being breathtaking women living their truth and allowing me to use their image as the header for this blog. I love you.