Unsettled.

It's 9:30 on Saturday morning and there are so many things I should be doing aside from writing a blog. Most importantly, finishing an essay I have due in 4 days (that I've barely started). But here we are, doing what we really want! What a wild few days I've had. If you had told that kiddo sitting amongst the flowers at 3 years old that she'd be here.... well actually, she would probably just shrug, climb on a chair, shove the wiggles tape in and dance around drinking juice. My point is, I would like to tell her that even though she's often going to be very slow to make decisions, when she does make them they're large and as a result, in charge. On Wednesday, I made the pilgrimage to Perth for a three month repose. It was such a scary decision to leave my safe life in Melbourne and my roomie for life H, but apparently everything you want is on the other side of fear. Let's go back. A few months ago I sat down on H's bed, I remember my palms sweating and my heart beating so fast because I had to force myself to say the words 'I think I want to move out.' Now, this was considerably harder for me to say than actually deciding where to go or what I was going to do when I got there because H is what the kids would say, my ride or die. H and I have been living together on and off for 8 years and we spent every hour of every day together in the months that Melbourne was in isolation. She's always pushing me to do new things, maybe she sees some sort of potential in me that I can't, or maybe she's just sick of me watching Seinfeld on the couch but either way, the words weaselled in and I decided to do something hard. So I told her I wanted to move, and I reached out to my 'Insta' friend K. We've never met in real life, but we message occasionally through Instagram. She is an incredible vegan chef, musician and advocate whose career is on the brink of greatness. K told me a friend's dad was renting his house out for 3 months, I sent him a text and now, here I am. I honestly can't believe it worked out. It could have been so bad. I flew 4 hours to live in the house of someone I've never met, recommended by someone I've never met, in a city I've never been to, to do something I have never done in my entire life: live alone. The first day was magic. I got up at 5:30am and started my 80 day writing project called The Artists' Way. You begin with building a ritual practice called Morning Pages, where you write three stream of consciousness pages, accompanied by a different creative project you have to fulfil daily across the 12 weeks. I walked down to the coffee shop recommended by the owner and made friends with the waitress who was an awesome woman. I would say she is probably in her late 40's and was wearing a big head scarf and denim overalls rocking a mane of grey curly hair. After seriously considering the purchase of an $85 bottle of hand cream, the scent of which can only accurately be described as the feeling of falling in love, (or maybe blocking a guy who told me how to HAVE A SHOWER for fucks sake)* I came home and pretended to study. I say study.... but it was actually more a foray into the magnetic world of Samin Nosrat, the genius author, teacher and cook who wrote and created Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. (watch the trailer, she's the shit) Then, I went to lunch with K. I was a bit nervous, I was meeting someone who I quite frankly considered to be a goddess both in beauty, intellect and contribution to an ethical sustainable lifestyle. But she too, was the shit. After lunch things got pretty weird, maybe cosmic, maybe coincidence. Not long ago I heard the name Lilette, I don't know if it was in a dream or on a show but I heard it and I couldn't stop writing it. I grabbed an envelope from the pile of unopened charity donation letters I subscribed to in a moment of guilt and I wrote it out about 100 times, like a kid practicing their signature. I put it under my pillow and slept with it there until I left my house to come here- then, as I'm walking around, looking up at the big eucalyptus trees (and the people wearing puffer jackets in 23 degree weather) I see, right in-front of me, a shop called Lilette. So naturally, I shed a very small tear and called my mum to tell her. Who knows what it means, but I'm taking it as a sign that I'm in the right place at the right time doing the next right thing. I love it here, it's rained every night and been warm every day. I've been getting up early, writing, working, cooking, and reading Perfume, my favourite film; that (rather embarrassingly) I've never read the original text that it was based off. Thankfully, and with a great sense of privilege the owner is seemingly my creative soulmate who has left me with a shelf of books on interior design, photography, music, indigenous culture, painting, sculpture, murder mystery, and best of all, food. I'm three days down, and have 77 to go. Tonight E is coming over for dinner, the one who I wrote Unlikeable about, and my only hope is that we can consume the amount of potatoes, halloumi, pasta and salad I've purchased for the great reunion. I feel the opposite of settled, in all the right ways. Settled wasn't serving me anything except a solid dose of laziness, comfort and complacency. I feel beyond lucky and proud of myself for going on a solo adventure on the other side of the country, just to see exactly what is on the other side (of fear or the continent, you decide). As Glennon Doyle says, we can do hard things. What are you going to do? M *On hinge, (a dating app for my mum who is reading this and might not know what it is), you have to answer questions not just upload photos. There are lots of prompts and usually you write something funny, something genuine and a little about yourself. This absolute, I don't even have a word, fool decided to mansplain to me how to have a shower. Enjoy. This is what online dating is like in 2021.

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.