Special Places – Alarna Rose Gray

Rage of the Heart

October 17, 2021 by Alarna Rose Gray 2 Comments

Hello. Did you miss me?

I missed me.

I think I’m nearly ready to do this thing again. Differently, though.

Go Wild. Quietly.

What does that even mean?

Our worlds have become so small. At least in Melbourne, with the world’s longest lockdown on record.

Our workplaces now reduced to two small screens, are in no way large enough to contain the petty politics of a fragmented workforce.

We’re all a little demented. Consumed with Mask Rage and Vax Rage and These-four-walls Rage.

From my upstairs window, I’ve been watching my neighbours dump regular gifts of bread for the crows to glut their babies’ bellies with.

I’m incensed with Bread Rage.

I’ve become the local mad hat, masked and gloved and stabbing my pickup stick at other people’s bread gifts.

The crows are incensed with Me.

They don’t understand. Maybe none of us do.

You might love this as much as I do: the word courage quite literally breaks down to ‘rage’ of the ‘heart’ (coeur in French).
~ Sarah Wilson, This One Wild and Precious Life

After six lockdowns totalling what will be 263 days inside our isolated urban bubbles, it’s the simple things you miss the most.

The smell of a freshly watered rainforest – no humans in sight.

The brisk, unfiltered rush of clean, inhaled air.

The happy, garbled chatter of cafe clientele, backdrop to the hiss – gurgle – crack of brewed coffee on the make.

That First. Eager. Slurp.

Freedom is the small things.

The temporary loss of these small pleasures has revealed the fault lines of our complicated, global existence.

We rage over their loss, because we don’t know how to deal with the Big. Unfathomable. Things.

Life is out of kilter. Perhaps it always was.

From the standpoint of today, what we thought was Normal is beginning to look like a fool’s wet dream. And tomorrow?

How do we re-emerge into this strangely unfamiliar Covid Normal world?

What will it look like ten or twenty or fifty years from now?

It’s through these Unfathomable Things that Sarah Wilson winds a “hopeful path forward” in her book This One Wild and Precious Life.

A book that is truly of its time, it whispered to me last year, quite by surprise, as I wandered aimlessly through a discount bookstore in what would become a rare and luxurious moment between lockdowns.

I was looking for an answer to my question: What, exactly, is going wild, quietly?

And how do I get back there?

The cover beckoned to me with an arresting image (I only later realised) of the very place where my own earliest memories of life in the wild began – out there, on the road to Cradle Mountain.

I had to buy it. And it was the most transformative read since Quiet; the Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, by Susan Cain. The perfect sequel, in a way, on my Go Wild. Quietly quest.

Tune in to my next post and beyond, where I delve into a review of the book and its power to enlarge one’s world.

Where are you at these days?

Centre of the Universe

June 13, 2014 by Alarna Rose Gray 35 Comments

I’ve been finding myself unusually socially active of late, so much so that my cousin recently invited me for a girls’ night at her place and was surprised to find I had another engagement.

“But you’re normally a bit of a recluse, aren’t you?” she says, and I’m forced to admit that I don’t ordinarily have a life.

The truth of the matter is sometimes I spend as much energy trying to avoid human contact as I do actually engaging.

But this year’s different.

There’s a certain calm in the air, the kind that whispers ‘just go with the flow’.

Since it was the Queen’s Birthday holiday last weekend, I had the chance to do just that.

Some friends took Ms and I on a 12km walk to the Centre of the Universe…

We start out from Trentham, following an old railway track into the nearby bushland home of the endangered Powerful Owl.

No owls, but a local Kookaburra enjoys a moment in the sun as we pass by.

Wild fungi and moss thrive in the cool damp of the forest.

Wildflowers, too.

The trail takes us to Lyonville, but what I don’t expect to find is this:

Warm hearth, mellow tunes and a glass of wine to wash it down at the Radio Springs Hotel.

If this is what lives at the Centre of the Universe, then next time you go looking, you will probably find me there 😉

Where have you been, lately?

The Bittersweet Escape

August 30, 2013 by Alarna Rose Gray 44 Comments

Ever had a gut feeling that you shouldn’t do something, but did it anyway?

I’m blaming it on cabin fever, because the forecast really wasn’t any good for a day trip.

It was Sunday morning, and I was doing my little “need to get me outta this joint” routine, so before long, Ms and I were sailing away to greener pastures…

Meet Noojee. An Aboriginal word that means ‘place of rest’ or ‘contentment’.

Just say it. Noo-jee.

Doesn’t that make you feel all warm and fuzzy?

The stares we got when we reached our destination were less than warm and fuzzy, just like the bartender’s polite suggestion that we dine down at the bistro.

But I wasn’t in the mood for subtle messages that day, so I put my cider down and prepared to soak up the atmosphere.

The table next to us was having a conversation.

“Saw these poofters down the street the other day. They were all over each other – holdin’ hands an’ everythin’!!”

“For real?! Aw, I wouldn’t come here if I were them…”

It slowly dawned on me that the bartender’s gentle suggestion was probably for our own protection…

Too late. Our meals arrived.

The place is noted for its Chicken Parma’s (Aussie speak for chicken schnitzel with tomato sauce and cheese, usually served with chips, vegies and beer).

The food really was as good as all the hype. Even the Veggie Parma was delicious.

We rolled out of there a few hours later, perfectly contented in the belly, and took a look around the sights.

By the end of the day, we could hear the wind between our ears and agreed that we got just what we came for.

Driving back, I had zoned out to a bit of Aussie trance music…

…when I spotted a policeman pointing from the window of his parked car.

“Was he pointing at us?” I wondered, barely registering that the 2.5 buildings we just drove past were probably meant to be a town.

Sure enough, the lights came flashing behind us. I pulled over and was informed I’d been driving 79 km/h in a 60 zone.

“There goes my overtime,” says Ms.

All $289 worth of it.

We re-traced our steps through the ‘drop-in-the-dirt town’, as Ms likes to call them. Found the 100m stretch of 60 zone I’d overlooked. And drove on home, subdued.

I learned many things that day. Well, a few.

Don’t listen to trance music on a Sunday drive in the country.
Do listen to ~~the forecast~~ your gut instinct.
The price of contentment is, sometimes, staying home where you belong.

When was the last time you ignored your gut instinct? Was there a lesson to be learned?

Campfire Magic

September 21, 2012 by Alarna Rose Gray 39 Comments

Some of you will know already that last weekend I took a little day trip to a regional park, known as the You Yangs.

In case you’re wondering, it is a name derived from a local Aboriginal word that means ‘big mountain in the middle of a plain’.

I’d promised to take some friends and have a meal over a fire back in May. But then the weather turned bad, life happened, and before I knew it September had arrived.

To be honest, the work involved in preparing campfire food and packing up the car seemed less than appealing at first. But we all chipped in, and on Saturday morning four of us hit the road.

The minute the fire was lit, the weight of the week lifted off…

The feeling stayed with me, and infused my on-line interactions.

Someone who I think of as my cyber Mum saw animal shapes in the fire and made me laugh.

One of my fire buddies reminisced about the yum and I was hungry all over again.

And then I was reminded of an email dialogue that started with a new on-line friend who goes by the name Campfireshadows.

It made me wonder – what is it about campfire that captures our imagination?

In the documentary, Becoming Human (Part 2), I was fascinated by the suggestion that fire was responsible for the social evolution of humans. At least, it makes sense to me that waiting for food to cook by the fire might lead to social interaction, the development of intimate bonds and (quite possibly) of language itself.

So perhaps there’s science to the magic of food, fires and storytelling?

In a globally fragmented world, these moments of community are rare. It makes me wish I could invite you all around my fire, for a yarn and some good ol’ Aussie tucker. And some wine.

Instead, I open up Twitter, and find these two messages side-by-side:

And that’s when I remember the power of blogs, and Facebook and Twitter.

Sure, it doesn’t always have the same romantic glow. I might have even been a skeptic once.

But that was before I made the effort to pack my baggage up and really Go There.

Now when I log in, more often than not, I find myself smiling and laughing and even shedding a tear as I’m invited into the intimacy of other’s private worlds.

We may not be able to gather around a real-life fire. But we’re lighting up each other’s worlds all the same.

I don’t know about you, but I find that magical.

The Master Painter’s Canvas

July 20, 2012 by Alarna Rose Gray 20 Comments

A few weeks back I was introduced to the poetry of Vincent Edward Manda. I’ve really enjoyed conversing with him and reading his poems, and was particularly inspired by his work The Painter of the World.

This post is in appreciation of his verse, and the question posed within. It goes along the lines of, if the world were a painting, doesn’t the art say something of the Master Painter, too?

I’m not much of an artist, but I know enough to know that ‘perfection’ is a blend of darks and lights…

Others also ponder on this theme. Whether it is the thoughtful philosophy of Global Unison, or the gorgeous travel log In Search of Perfect – there seems to be consensus that perfection and imperfection are closely intertwined.

So, inspired by these three, I thought it was time to take you to another holiday destination, this time New Zealand’s south island.

I was very lucky to visit before the recent earthquakes. It was my first and (so far) only overseas trip. I really did believe the ads that promised ‘100% Pure’….

The oil painting that is the Akaroa habour

Fiery remnants of a newly formed earth (Barry’s Bay near Akaroa)

Christchurch to Greymouth by Overlander rail

Beautifully manicured Lavendyl Lavendar Farm near Kaikoura

Chilled out seal colonies (Kaikoura)

Marine sanctuaries for the planet’s rarest dolphin (Akaroa)

Lyttelton historic town and habour

New Zealand is such a land of contrast; of exquisite highs and devastating lows. It hardly seems fair that since this trip, Lyttelton found itself the epicentre of the 2011 earthquake, while Akaroa was all but left untouched.

Here in Melbourne, this is worth a pause. We recently felt the tremors of a 5.3 magnitude quake. Except for a few Twitter updates, most of us barely noticed…

I love the line from Sonny, in the movie, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel:

“Everything will be all right in the end. So if it’s not all right, then it is not yet the end.”

So, too, with Lyttelton. In the wake of the trauma, the historic town boasts a renewed sense of community, focused on creating a sustainable future.

I don’t know about you, but I’m glad there’s still room on the Master Painter’s canvas…

An Island in a Sea of Words

June 15, 2012 by Alarna Rose Gray 19 Comments

After five weeks of blogging, I have a guilty confession to make. I love when I find a blog where stories are told in pictures. No words necessary.

When I stumbled upon Gabbies Island, the whole idea tickled me. An Island, in a sea of words, and in the midst of it, Wordless Wednesday, where a photo says it all. Thanks, Gabbie (some pretty cute pics there, too) 🙂

This is not to diminish all the faithful writers out there. It’s just that – sometimes, we need to take a breath.

So, this week, I thought I would take you for a visit to my own special Isle of Quiet.

This was a couple of years ago, when I went with my folks on a ten day trip to the East Coast of Tasmania.

Approaching Port Arthur Peninsula.