The Summer Holidays

February 2020

‘Courage is the resolve to do well without the assurance of a happy ending’ 

Dr Kate Marvel, climate scientist.

The first English assignment at the start of each year in my primary school was … you guessed it: ‘The Summer Holidays’. This year, mine begins: Emergency Services app and weather app at the ready, phones and laptops charged, single bag packed, fire clothes sorted, wool blankets and water in the car. 

Texts flowing out to relatives and friends: ‘Are you alright? What’s happening there?’ Messages flowing back: ‘Our house is still standing, but our neighbour’s is gone.’ ‘We’ve lost the studio.’ Watching the news. Listening to the radio. Day after day.

I’m in a state of constant attention, a hybrid of alertness and fear, and in the background, a brooding meditation on the way things are going in the world. Learning to feel with fires, but also to look past the fires to the politics, and through the politics to the ways of thinking, to what we value. I sense that we’re learning to hold the feeling of situations alongside critical inquiry into those situations.

Situation #1: In Cabargo, the Prime Minister shakes the hand of a pregnant woman. She does not accept this; he insists. The video goes viral. Like a football incident replayed, Australians make up their own minds. No, he didn’t pay attention. No listening, no discussion. No connection to her feeling.

Situation #2: Out shopping In Woodend, with the NSW South Coast and East Gippsland burning, the shop assistant asks cheerily: ‘How are you today?’ My partner replies slowly: ‘I don’t know really ….’ The shop assistant drops into her body, and her tone shifts: ‘I know what you mean.’ A pause in the flow of normal business. Feeling shared.

Situation #3: He checks the latest advice, the facts, says there’s no reason to go. She senses the situation, feel s unsafe. They try to hear each other, through the tangle of feeling and facts. This scenario, a thousand times, between the man and the woman.

Untangling the mess we’re in, with no hope of finding heaven. 

Just perhaps an honorable life.

Ross Colliver, Riddells Creek Landcare