In Place?

Thinking this morning about location - the broader sense of it as well as the specific place where my feet touch the ground. I adore the Australian landscape. Not just the way it looks, but the fresh, sharp smell of eucalyptus, the clack of branches in a storm, the unexpected croak of a black cockatoo as it cleaves the sky.

There is a great quote from Tim Winton's Cloudstreet, where he writes about the sense of belonging (or not) that a place engenders:

'When I was a girl I had this strong feeling that I didn't belong anywhere,... It was in my head, what I thought and dreamt, what I believed..., that's where I belonged, that was my country.'


This connection between imagination, self-identity and place is powerful. Often I write where I can see the trees (like this morning). They operate as a muse, leaving my mind free. Perhaps my story runs smooth or ragged depending on the intricacies of their bark or the shape of the branches. A bird, its remarkably fragile legs holding onto a branch, becomes a metaphor for how we all cling to the world. Or, like the cockatoo, launch ourselves into the sky, unafraid of the turbulence this might bring.

As I work my way through the alternate need to cling to the familiar or seek out a new location, India is only a place in the landscape of my imagination. I wonder what stories it holds?