Tasmanian Starfish
I’ve been hanging out to get here, to a breezy northern Tasmanian beach with the sunshine on my shoulders, walking through saltwater at low tide out to a little island with rowdy birds.
In the water there are starfish that wobble and I’m too cautious to actually touch one, the water ripples over it.
As I sit on a orange lichen covered rock watching sooty oyster catchers getting their dinner I feel my shoulders drop and drop and drop and drop. I breathe deeply, be still and simply be. Sydney is receding, Tasmania is surrounding me.
I watch the clouds flow across in their own tides of wind over mountain ranges that always capture my imagination. I wonder what animals are under those trees living their own lives, which birds are sitting in their favourite tree watching out for a tasty morsel? I matter to none of them. Joy fills my heart.
When I start to think again I look through the surrounding seascape at what the coming month might hold for me. I have shows to setup and run, stockists to visit but none of that stays long in my mind, the thoughts of new discoveries down at Bruny Island have tingling indistinct edges, returning to the wild north west to Marrawah and Couta Rocks are vivid with remembered details and I hope I’ll have the courage to actually take out my travel sketch book to draw and paint.
For the first time in a year I’m wearing my adventure pants and shoes, I’m snuggling into my favourite adventure coat and revel in the sense of freedom. I feel like my being is singing joyously and wish I had a song to sing lustily to truely express my loud inner self. I’ve been feeling this way since I drove off the ferry this morning and along the northern Tasmanian roads with views of mountain ranges, fresh green rolling fields, rich red earth of ploughed paddocks with blue full dams and towering trees.
When I looked at the tides for Shearwater with the hope of an afternoon low tide I laughed out loud in the cafe to find there was one with perfect timing, giving me time to potter around La Trobe and Deloraine before coming out to this charming seaside town. Enough time to walk out to Penguin Island, explore and play, sit and be, before the tide changed and the sun wanted to set.
Taking in the Serenity
I catch up with a treasured local friend and she’s all excited for Sydney news and all I want to do is leave that where it is. I’m about done with words after three days of driving, a mad hectic series of months of family illness, an overflowing work plate and time spent settling back into myself on a rocky island off the point of a national park.
Even now, when I can feel how tired my spirit has become, how drained my creative self is and words are out of reach to speak, I can already feel my soul is being nurtured, is being fed and rested. I wonder what will come from this trip as every return journey from this land has my creative muse fired up with new ideas, new designs, new concepts and this year I have the time scoped out when I get back to Sydney to launch into it. And I’ll have to make sure I do more things to feed my creative spirit when I’m in my normal living world.
But that is weeks away. Now I have day upon day of being here, in Tasmania, to explore, eat and drink, sleep and rest, be with friends and have some solitude. And that is already settling my soul.
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