Our Garden

Yesterday, my housemates and I spent most of the afternoon in our front garden, turning the soil and planting a new crop of warm-season vegetables. By the end of it we were all hot, sweaty and covered in a fine dust-like layer of dirt and cow manure. We probably stank. We were exhausted. We were a little sunburnt. But boy we were proud!

We’re looking forward to a crop of mint, pumpkins, Lebanese cucumbers, snow peas, and butter beans; and we’re hoping that this lot of coriander will take better than the last one.

I love our little garden. And yesterday I realised why people say gardening is good for the soul. It’s hard work – and it’s dirty work! – but there is something incredibly satisfying in planting something and helping it grow. Not to mention that we’re trying really hard to have an organic garden, and we’re using the castings and liquid fertiliser from our worm farm (the worms are all named Barry, in case you’re interested – I have a strangely close relationship with this bunch of slimey things). And you can't help but feel good about yourself if you know you're avoiding using chemicals on your food crops.

In my opinion, watering your own garden in the early evening is perhaps one of the most relaxing things you can do. Yesterday we also bought a mini water tank (100 litres), in which we will put the clean water we catch from the shower while it’s heating up. So yesterday evening, with the aforementioned stink settling into our skin, we stood out in the garden watering and admiring our handiwork. The smiles on our faces couldn't have been bigger.

So, now that I’ve babbled for long enough about how much I love our garden and how hard we’re trying to minimise our negative impact on our surroundings, I’ll get to the point. About once a month I’m going to try to post a picture of some of our produce. Above is a picture of some carrots we harvested yesterday.

I'm amazed that I can help bring something like this to life, and it inspires me to try my hand at other creative pursuits as well. I hope our little garden might help inspire you too.

Watch out for the new monthly project tomorrow.

Am I Boring?

This weekend I attended 'Guwanyi': National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Writers' Festival. It was held at the New South Wales Writers' Centre on a very rainy Saturday. The Writers' Centre is a lovely old building inside Rozelle Hospital grounds; and the perfect location for such a festival.

I went with another non-indigenous friend and we agreed that it was an insightful experience to listen to so many writers of indigenous background talk about their experiences, both as people and as writers; and to do so with a certain level of objectivity, not playing the part of the bitter victim, a box I believe Aboriginal people often find themselves in. So many of the writers had very moving, and sometimes tragic, personal and familial histories.

Many writers that I speak to write about themselves. Maybe not directly, but definitely on some kind of subconscious level they write about how they experience the world. At the moment I find it very difficult to do this. I often write about sadness, but it is not very often my own.

I realised yesterday that I have often felt like my own experiences and the way I think about the world are not interesting enough to write about. I am middle class and white. I had a lovely childhood and still have a loving family. I have already received a good education and am in a position to pursue further study. I am in no way complaining about any of these things, quite the opposite: I am very thankful for them.

My point is that I have never felt like I can write about myself because my life does not really provide any interesting material. And so I write other people's stories.

Of course, just because I don't write about myself does not mean I don't write for myself. And, in the end, I guess people that have had incredible experiences and go on to write about them are doing the same: writing for themselves.

I'm not sure what my overall point is here, exactly. I guess I'm interested to find out what motivates other people to create. Is it an exploration or an exorcisim of sorts?

A new project tomorrow! And we will put the responses to the last up sometime this week. Apologies for the disorganisation this month.

Image by soartsyithurts.

PS. I am aware of the irony inherent in me writing a post all about how I don't write about myself!