mja blog

  • The Weekend

    This weekend I felt the quiet more than usual. Not loneliness exactly. There is my husband, who has never asked me to be louder than I am, who lets silence be something we can share.

    And still there are lives I carry beside my own. My sister – brave, frustrating, vulnerable – her life hers to choose, while I stand nearby wanting to protect what I cannot control.

    Mum is ageing too, a little less certain at times, more fixed to familiar things, still missing Dad. I look at her and see time.

    I look at myself and see it there too – in the body that tires sooner, in strength quietly leaving.

    There are other absences. A brother beyond reach. Children growing whom I may never know. No younger generation following in my wake.

    And sometimes I wonder what the later years will bring – what will remain, what will be lost.

    So I return to what is here.

    A husband who understands silence.

    A sister still living her own life.

    A mother still here to love.

    Perhaps gratitude and sorrow are not opposites. Perhaps they sit beside each other, each reminding us that what we fear losing is what we still have.

  • The Quiet Place

    The room fills with voices –
    Mum’s quick rivers of thought,
    Sister’s stories turning the air
    toward her days and battles.

    I sit among them
    with words that move more slowly,
    like leaves drifting
    down a calmer stream.

    Sometimes they pass me by –
    the moment to speak,
    the small opening
    that closes again.

    But I remember
    how my dad used to sit beside me,
    quiet as I was,
    a soft smile
    that said without saying:
    There’s no rush.
    Your thoughts belong here.

    And even now,
    while the room carries on
    in its louder ways,
    I feel that quiet place beside me
    where someone
    is still listening.

  • The Study Corner

    This is where I did most of my degree: an old corner desk that was never really designed for handwritten notes, but which I gradually turned into a small command centre.

    Around me were the essentials of higher education: two monitors, highlighter pens, speakers, a giant King Julien mug requiring several hot-beverage refills a day, and a Maltese fertility goddess keeping watch over proceedings.

    Tasmania featured heavily. Photos from Mum and my trip rotated across one screen, while a small Tasmanian Devil sat beneath the other as my unofficial UTAS mascot.

    Above the desk were magpies saying “wardle oodle ardle woodle”, a favourite photo of my husband with Spook and Ebony, a llama that vaguely represented Peru, and assorted objects collected over the years whose academic purpose was difficult to establish but whose presence was apparently essential.

    Winter study required a poncho, extra jumper and fingerless gloves. Concentration was maintained through soft Spotify playlists and the Pomodoro technique: 25 minutes of study followed by five minutes in which I could stretch, make tea, stare into space or wonder why strategic management required quite so much sociology.

    It was cluttered, slightly eccentric and completely mine.

    And somehow, from that little corner, a degree happened.

  • The Gecko

    This morning,
    on my way to the back door,
    I saw a gecko
    clinging beside the frame –
    head pointing down,
    one small leg stretched behind,
    its tail curved
    loosely to one side.

    Nothing unusual in that.

    They live among us quietly,
    running across walls
    and upside-down ceilings
    as though gravity
    were only a suggestion.

    I pointed it out
    as we passed.

    Perhaps Rosie had found it
    the night before,
    my husband said –
    some small excitement
    in the dark.

    A few minutes later
    I came back.

    The gecko was still there.

    Not a flicker,
    not the smallest movement,
    only that impossible grip
    upon the wall.

    I thought:
    it is waiting for me to leave.

    I touched it gently,
    expecting the sudden life of it –
    the startled leap,
    the quick scramble
    out of reach.

    Nothing.

    And still,
    for a little while,
    I could not quite believe
    that it was gone.

    I swept it carefully
    into the dustpan
    and carried it outside,
    leaving every chance
    for some mistake –
    for a tiny foot to move,
    a tail to twitch,
    for life to suddenly remember itself
    and run away.

    But it did not.

    Later,
    beneath a young bottlebrush,
    I made a small place
    in the earth
    for a grey little creature
    that had lived unnoticed
    inside our walls,
    and for one morning
    made me stop
    and notice it.

  • Simplifying

    At the end of the year
    I began
    to make things smaller.

    A friends list,
    cut back
    to the people
    with whom I do not need
    to explain myself –
    family,
    old friends,
    those who already know
    the shape of me.

    I stepped away, too,
    from a role
    I had carried faithfully
    without ever quite
    belonging to its purpose.

    There was nothing wrong
    with the work.

    Only the quiet knowledge
    that time is finite,
    and if I am going
    to give mine away,
    I want to care
    where it goes.

    Study finished.

    No next chapter
    waiting neatly
    on the desk.

    So for now
    I am at home,
    sorting cupboards,
    clearing drawers,
    letting go
    of the things
    that have gathered
    without being chosen.

    Perhaps that is what
    I am doing elsewhere too.

    Removing
    what no longer fits.

    Keeping
    what feels true.

    Making room
    before I know
    exactly
    what will fill it.

    Next month
    I begin something new –
    a small step
    back toward work,
    back toward possibility,
    back toward a part of myself
    that has been waiting.

    I do not know yet
    where it leads.

    For once,
    that does not feel
    like being lost.

    It feels
    like space.

  • The Angry Generation

    When Sinead died
    I went back
    to the songs.

    Songs I had not heard
    for years,
    still carrying that voice –
    clear,
    wounded,
    unafraid.

    People called her
    a warrior.

    But I don’t think
    she wanted a fight.

    I think she simply
    saw things
    and could not pretend
    she didn’t.

    The lies,
    the cruelty,
    the things everyone agreed
    not to mention.

    She mentioned them.

    And when the world
    punished her for it,
    she kept speaking
    in that strange, fierce voice
    that sounded less like anger
    than pain
    refusing to disguise itself.

    Maybe that is why
    she belonged so completely
    to our generation.

    We were called angry too.

    We grew up
    while certainties loosened –
    jobs disappeared,
    families changed,
    leaders lied,
    and television taught us
    to distrust
    the people on television.

    We learnt early
    that authority
    did not always deserve
    the name.

    So we questioned.

    We rolled our eyes.
    We turned the music up.
    We made jokes
    when perhaps
    we should have cried.

    And somewhere between
    the Boomers before us
    and the generations
    that came after,
    we became
    the ones in the middle –
    not asking
    to be noticed,
    and noticing everything.

    Perhaps we were angry.

    But perhaps anger
    was only the word
    they gave us
    for seeing the cracks
    and refusing
    to call the wall sound.

    For wanting something
    more honest.

    Something fairer.

    Something real.

    Listening to Sinead now,
    knowing there will be
    no more songs,

    I hear that same thing –
    not a warrior
    looking for battle,
    but a human voice
    trying desperately
    to tell the truth
    before the world
    could talk over her.