A year of…
A year of slow Sundays, tv static, changing colours, confused air, capital letters, eucalyptus, alliteration.
I. January lay in the rain. Ocean swims. Sitting behind the break. Thinking; I want to cut my hair. Blue swimmer crab. Hand cream. Silver on my wrists. Burnt feet. Salad at midday. Scrabble. Unscramble. January caught a wave to the shore and walked barefoot back to the car, noticing how the headlands of her favourite beach had changed over a lifetime. January got her wisdom teeth taken out. She danced in the pool and watched her people cook in the kitchen of her best friend. She began writing lists. January moved at a different pace.
II. February took long showers. Older. Younger. Salty hair. Salty toes. Sleepless nights. Poetry. Tim Winton. Bodies of water. Ponds. Rivers. Streams. 8 hour train ride. Sneeze. Laura Marling. A house on the hill. Sunglasses. Hand cream. Doing the dishes. HB pencils. Pages filling. Chipped nails. Nicotine. Corduroy. Test cricket. Weak black coffee. Newspaper Sudoku. Gum nuts. Electrical storms. Cowrie shells. A tree house. Freckles on my ear. Asleep on warm rocks. Floating. Falling. Catching. Washing on the line. Storm in the sky. February caught a bus to Maroubra on a summers evening. February took her closest friends to a Chinese restaurant on Valentines Day. February noticed the cicadas outside and felt the golden glow of summer dissolve into her wet skin.
III. March caught a cold. She drank tea with lemon, honey and ginger. She felt weighed down by tired eyes and long days on her feet. She wrote a list of things she would do when the air got colder. Wake up later, play piano, knit a scarf.
IV. April counted her fading freckles. Days slipping away. Milkshake. Wine. Blush. Essays. Humidity. Four leaf clover. An envelope with a heart on it. No wine. Growing Pains. Pen pal. Conflict. Breeze. Home made lemonade. Dinner party. Cinema. Irish folk songs. Ocean shack. Haiku. Habit. Carrot Cake. Batch brew. April looked at the stars with different eyes. April found a comfort in a routine she had built. She watched as people around her fell into the arms of opportunity. April drank expensive wine. April fell into late nights and early mornings. She felt polished.
V. Ebb. Flow. Move. Brown box. Yearn. Inequality. Fear. Orange bed side lamp. Philosophy. Corked wine. Walking. Running. Candles in bottles. Cancelled plans. Korean rice wine. Nail clippers. Family. Growing pains. Disorganisation. Job interview. Eyes of a lover. Mosaic. May tossed and turned. May grew tired a 10pm, her feet aching from waking up before the sun. May mourned the ocean. She ran in circles and braided her hair. May camped in the mountains, her lover wore green. May cut her hair. May was stuck.
VI. Coffee Beans. Hand-bag. Mandarins. Phone Calls. Night drive. Dark purple nail polish. Checked quilt. Woollen socks. Hot water bottle. Vinnies vest. Thighs. White headphones. Cold hands. Scarves. Sewing. Mascara. Milo. The Catcher in the Rye. Coloured pencil drawings. Oil diffusor. Lather. Control. Impulse. Laps of the pool. Hiking boots. Plaits. Loafers. Leaves falling in your hair. Stella’s house. Soup. Red pen. Art books from Grandpa. Hair brush. Future. Past. Present. Push. Pull. Button up shirts. Stockings. Red wine. Running for the bus. Apple crumble. Sit ups. Capsicum. Second place. Scrambled Egg. June spent her days off in the bed of her lover,
thinking about buying a takeaway coffee. June had a fever. June went to One Penny Red. June always had flowers next to her bed. June made a lot of playlists.
VII. Cancelled trip. Dreaming of a garden party. Knitting a scarf. Apple pie. Walking the same streets. Moving furniture around. Tacit. Boredom. Booktopia order. Gravitating towards the river. Lists of ingredients. Grounding myself. Baths. Knees tucked under my chin. Hot Milk. Yearning. Pros and cons list. Unravelled. Eggs. July read a memoir that made her feel like a woman. July took pictures of things she wanted to draw. July looked inside from outside. July was domestic. July was bored, scattered, and only a little bit broken. July fell in love with her lovers family. July met her friend on the river to smoke weed. Everyone had a scarf on. July ate Burrata. July sewed a top. July fell madly in love with tofu. She did the Sunday sudoku. She lay in the sun and waited and waited and waited.
VIII. Open water. “It is Summer now and…”. Brussel sprouts. Long deep breaths. Holding the man I love. Counting freckles. Steam. Blue tank top. Architecture. Movement. Ordered clutter. Just Right. Yoga. Spending hours cooking. Confused winter. Muffled whispers. Chlorine. Coffee pot. Lying in the grass. Lana del Ray. Coloured pencil sketches. August folded clothes. August kept waiting. August took photos of herself in mirrors on the sides of roads. August wrote letters to her friends. August made a zine. She made dumplings with her little sister. She put things in boxes and wen to sit in the sun again; preparing to thaw out for spring.
IX. String bags full of veggies. Long dresses. Big Thief. Trinkets. In the eyes of friends. My bodies movement. Eucalyptus. Stretching. Taking care of the garden. Cereal in the morning. Plaits in my hair. Summer wine. Going to get our nails done. Cooking with
my lover. Cauliflower that dad grew. Four leaf clovers. Summer bras. Nasturtiums. Domesticity. September wore a white dress. And lots of hoodies. September picked flowers off the side of thread and ate them. September ate soft boiled eggs and drank coffee. Nothing new. She sat by the pool as her lover worked. She almost melted away. September kept running in circles, not dissimilar to May. September gave a lot of hugs. Embracing her friends as if it were yesterday. September went on picnics! September was drunk on the streets of Marrickville and felt sixteen years old again; alive and free. September found a place in the garden that felt like her own. September was, unfortunately, materialistic.
X. Re-establishing. Sea Spray. Thursdays. Consumed. Fixation on a figure. Monkey Grip. Clementine. Aching. Feet and Hands. Mindfulness. Curating music for the morning. Clouds parting. Clouds moving. Small Words. Re-equating. A sketch of how you want your life to look like. Processing the negative. In a landscape. Curation. Eating. Viscosity. Grocery list poems. October made her first pavlova. She watched clouds form and ran for shelter. October kept walking. October saw boys she hadn’t seen for months, and remembered how much they meant to her. October played ping pong. October consistently made her bed. October felt loved by the people around her. October fell into a swimming routine with her best friend. They lay on rocks and read to each other in the early mornings. October felt like she was all grown up. She wasn’t. October had a dinner party; many a dinner party.
XI. Blue eyes. Sun shower. Combing hair on a wooden bench. Storm clouds. Stacks of books. Tea in familiar mugs. Salty air. Rupture. Calm evening. Lethargy for the weekend. Fog, Mist, Clouds. Nature positions itself in the shape of a heart. Drift wood.
Drifting away. Bluebottles. Virginia Wolfe. November was sweaty. November was 19! November walked from Newtown to Marrickville and felt alive with the women in her life. November ran up the coast and danced in the waves. She took a cold shower and stared into the mountains. She felt like that old church could be her home for many years. She found a home in him, as he did her. She collected sea shells off the beach. Her nails were orange. November was open armed and vulnerable. November got her film developed! November kept going to the beach on Thursdays. November walked down the hill and sat on wooden benches in a weathered shack with her beautiful friends. She listened to Laura marling. Change was coming.
XII. December ran away from her. Taking longer strides. Heat, humidity, rain. Longer thoughts, longer days. Familial embrace. Slow affirmations. Clothes hanging on the line. Linen sheets, cotton pyjamas. Sand moving closer. Salty skin. Summer hill Vinnies. Pizza. Broccolini. Gin and Tonic. Road trips looming. Moving house. Salvos. Bookending the year. Reflection. Reflex. The smell of sunscreen. December found a new home. She packed her piles of things into wooden boxes. She fell synonymously into the lives of girls who stared into reflections, and read and cooked and loved, like she did. She found the sun again. She bought a new pair of goggles. December hung all her clothes in a new wardrobe. She watched her best friend piece together snippets of their year on iMovie. She heard the cars outside her window and hung clothes on a new line and slowly welcomed the changing air. December was one part of a whole.