Your job is to listen.

by Alex from Maybe ( ) Together

Today I sit on the lands of the South Yamaji people.
The salt wind blows hard here.
The trees bend permanently to let the breeze flow.
You’d have to love the ocean to live here.

I sit in a fibro shack a hundred metres from the beach.
Surrounded by homages to the sea and home.
Men tinker in their utes.
Sand scatters the roads and verandahs.
The sound is of windchimes and doors squeaking with the breeze.

It’s December 2021 (and all that means)
And I have left the busy city life.
And busy job.
To be An Artist.

Carved out six days and I didn’t realise how much I’d missed it.
As I drove up the highway out, I had flash backs of highways out of many towns before reaching a residency.
The Hume and Indian Ocean Drive, on opposite sides of the country, yet feeling identical.
That sense of leaving the city for a fresh air.

Someone said how lucky I was to travel to Geraldton.
I semi-scoffed: Well, Gero doesn’t exactly feel like Japan.
But they were right.
It is a different place. A different culture. A different sound.
A different country: Yamaji country.

I’ve been saying all week, it’ll be great to have my artist hat on again.
Even if just a week for now.
And I don’t think I even knew what that meant.
What does that look like to you, my therapist asked.
Well. I guess. I don’t know.
The blurriness of surviving as a producing artist has muddied the water somewhat.
Um. I guess. Not doing the scheduling? The wrangling?
Asking questions?
I didn’t leave that hour much wiser.
Except to realise I wanted to start writing again.
Taking notes. Maybe even blog?
I miss writing. I have for years.
I just haven’t had the time, the emotion, the space.

But with that thought and a 4hr drive I remembered.
That feeling.
Of noticing.
Of listening.

Of being curious. Of following threads and weaving thoughts.
Yes. I remember.

I start.
I see photos I want to take.
Images that remind of things I know about this town.

Of Tim Winton Novels, craypots and faded buoy rope.
Of a talc stone I took on the dock on a school holiday visit.
Of the giant roundabout we drove through every summer.
Of Queenspark Theatre. And the children we heard.
Of the people I know who are from here:
Writers. Actors. Tinder dates.
Of the wind.

And times with a partner.
Seeing  Geraldton through his eyes.
A hometown full of his memories.
Of hot days, surfing, friends and family.

My dog sniffs through the fibro shack.
A place filled with history, we bet.
I hear a seagull in the distance.
The light has gone that golden, WA summer sunset colour.
I listen. I notice.
This is the practice.
Oh. I remember.