Daily writing practice my way

Apricot jam and Daily Creative Connections (aka Five Things)

Dear Creative Souls,

I know a lot of you are doing NaNoWriMo this month and, if that’s you, I wish you all the best and flowing words. It’s not for me - I know I do not have the capacity to fit that in to my day/week, and if I accepted that challenge I’d be setting myself up to fail. Why do that to myself? I’d rather trust that I know my limits and do my own thing.

Instead, I’m working on a short story which needs to be submitted by the end of the month, and taking part in Summer Brennan’s Essay Camp by writing five things a day. Both of these things are filling my creative cup.

And then there’s jam … our October weather has been more like November weather, so my apricots have ripened weeks earlier than usual. It’s fortuitous, really, because we leave for Germany at the beginning of December, and so we have a few weeks to harvest as many as possible. Unfortunately, it’s so warm that it’s all a bit of rush to get them in. So, I’ll be donning my apron tomorrow and making my go-to French-style apricot jam that has the intensity of warm summer’s day.

Thanks to

Meg Dunley

for alerting me to this article called “Don’t Let People Live Rent Free in Your Mind” by May Pang - it came at the perfect timing for me. Here’s a snippet:

“We obsess endlessly about who is good enough to be a formal tenant in our minds (e.g., a romantic partner or potential friends), yet we often let an obnoxious colleague or even a rude stranger squat for hours in our brain rent free without any screening at all.”

For me, it’s yet another reason to do Morning Pages or some other form of writing to dump all those “tenants” and keep all that valuable space for creativity and the wonderful people in my life … which leads to this week’s Five Things.

Five Things

Saturday

Over coffee, rich and bold, we ponder the pros and cons of downsizing into a townhouse, with no or little garden, perhaps closer to the city and then our neighbour, across the road, 30 metres away, starts playing jarring music full of bass and we remember that we can’t afford it anyway.

The sound of chewing can switch my mood faster than an arrow slicing the air, and I am working on this.

The whoosh of cars up and down our street; earlier, I heard only the morning breeze in the apricot tree and birds, singing the day (and me) awake, and I am grateful I woke early.

I am giving an author talk and feel strangely relaxed, but the light-filled library is warm and I am glad no one can see the pools forming under my arms.

Discussing anti-inflammatory foods and discover that peanut butter likely fits into that group, which reassures me about the Get Chunky peanut butter cookie I scoffed earlier.

Sunday

Cardamom tea, black and fragrant, while I write; I close my eyes and breathe in, slowing my mind after hours’ sorting through papers.

Namoura, a Lebanese semolina cake drenched in a lemon and rosewater syrup, rests on the bench; we will enjoy this for dessert later but first, I will spare a moment for those caught up in a battle of truths.

An email sends me deep into boxes of papers; I am looking for a number of nine digits and instead I dredge up the past.

I think there must be at least 400 apricots on my tree and experience tells me most of them will ripen at the same time.

This afternoon I walked into my past and came out with a story.

Monday

The smallest things remind me of how fortunate I am and today those things are the blueberries I am picking for my breakfast.

There is a baby in my arms and it smells like milk, warm and soft, but it is gone when I wake; hope is rising in me that one day I will see my sons hold their child for the first time.

Jacaranda flowers paint the sidewalk at the bottom of the hill, a mixed medium masterpiece of petals on concrete with a short exhibition time.

My son is helping a friend raise baby birds and, as I listen to him talk of waking several times a night to help with feeding, I see a glimpse of the father he wants to be.

A willie wagtail flies under the patio and the cat stirs from my lap; she is alert but not enough to move, unlike the bird who darts around collecting spiders for its dinner.

Tuesday

Birds in three parts: a wattle bird chases off a crow, a galah dives in front of my windscreen and barely survives, a parrot stares me down while munching an apricot.

I am sitting at the traffic lights; a butterfly lands on a bush just metres from my car, and this little moment makes me smile because it felt like it was just for me.

A rich, spiced tomato sauce is simmering on the stove, and I add a handful of fresh herbs, finely chopped - parsley, basil and mint - and fat butter beans, inhaling the savoury perfume and counting the minutes until dinner.

After work we take a ladder and harvest a bucket of apricots, pausing to share the ripest, before reaching for another… and another. This abundance is a gift that will keep giving for weeks.

Drone’s eye view on TV: a French medieval castle, surrounded by a sea of fog, lifting, rising, swirling. I want to shrink myself onto that drone and ride its magic carpet over gently rolling hills dotted with ruins.

Wednesday

A thump and we all leap up - a red cap parrot has flown into the glass door and is out the front, stunned, its little heart thumping in its red chest, while our hearts thump in hope. It flies away, leaving a streak of blood on the pavers, and still, we hope.

A little girl, maybe three, crouches down next to me to watch the bird, and the two of us chat about birds and bat-shaped Halloween cookies, and I remember how much I love spending time with little ones and their innocent hearts.

Last week I bought a coffee for the woman who delivers papers to work every week; today she said that random act of kindness had helped her through a difficult week, and the takeaway is simple: we never know what impact we can have with the smallest kindness.

An impromptu dinner, a celebration of sorts, becomes a catch-up with good friends when we both arrive at the same restaurant simultaneously, and we celebrate life together.

Sweet, syrupy coffee lingers on my tongue from the Espresso martini I drank an hour ago … and then I brush my teeth.

Thursday

Someone told me they loved my book and if my chest could puff out it probably would. Or maybe it did and no one noticed.

I run three kilometres today and no one is chasing me; I don’t have marathon dreams, but fitness goals, and this little win is a goal kicked.

I read a poem that says more about politics, war and ideology in 27 words than 27 headlines and I cry for those caught in the middle of a war with no winners.

I go outside to harvest apricots in the golden light and listen to the birds sing their stories, and I remember how I felt the last time I sang with all my heart: joyful. Do birds feel joy?

Last night, the first time I heard my novel Wildflower on audiobook, goosebumps shivered my skin because the number of women killed in domestic violence incidents continues to rise.

Friday

It is windy while I am watering the flower garden and the hose-water smell takes me back to childhood, drinking from the hose, water dribbling down my mouth and soaking my T-shirt and I wonder if kids today know what that’s like.

The apricots I picked yesterday look impossibly riper; I simultaneously want to scoff a couple and feel anxiety at knowing I have to bump “make jam” to the top of my to-do list on a November day expected to reach 37C (98.6F).

A big moment happens for us this week, but after months and years of expecting everything to feel different, nothing else has changed, and I am still waiting for the champagne bottle inside me to go POP.

Reading a review of an author friend’s book and someone, a complete stranger, has commented that reading this book was “torture”, and I allow this stranger way more free real estate in my head than she deserves, because why on earth keep reading it if it is so painful? Life is too short and there are too many books. And don’t get me started on using the word torture … I walk outside and stare at clouds so I can let it go, then open the door and kick the squatter out.

I clean the house - mopping, dusting, vacuuming, scrubbing - but I need to work on cleaning my house, my mind, of people and thoughts who do not need to take up valuable space.