Change, for me, is always slow. Before it arrives, I’m already there in my mind, just waiting for the physical components to slide into place.
When I came to this happy little hovel by the sea, it was like stepping into a well worn slipper.
Common Ringtail Possum by David Cook
The oasis, marking with finality an end to years of complicated share house living, long past due.
I didn’t care about the shabby paint job, or the brown brick walls, or the fact that my neighbours could stare straight through my kitchen, into my living room, and out the other side.
It was my home. Where I could be myself, with the only other person on the planet who’s ever seen what that really means. And asked to stay.
Six years on, why am I so restless?
I’d like to blame it on the screaming single mum, and the fact her kids have finally found their voices, too.
Or the retiree who, bless his knee-high cotton socks, still manages to get excessive joy from pruning the wildlife out of the trees.
Or the fact my house is now bursting with skerricks of unfinished things – ointments and clothes and discarded trains of thought.
“This place is too small!” It screams, everywhere I look.
But that’s just an excuse.
Recently, during a rare afternoon spent cleaning up my garden, I heard rustling.
High up above, from within a thorny hideaway, I glimpsed a gleaming bit of tail.
My little Ringtail Possum has moved house!
That evening, I placed a pear on the fence by Lady Possum Tail’s home. A goodwill offering to the gods.
She took a bite, and hurled it at the ground, I discovered the next day. Shame on me, for insulting her sense of self determination!
A few nights later, when I was washing up the dishes, I spotted her sitting on the fence. A little garden sentry, looking at me, looking at her.
And I realised, it’s not the neighbours, or the house. It’s me.
This home was only ever a holding pattern. A place to go underground a while, to find strength to face the world again, on my own terms.
In her ever gentle way, Lady Possum Tail came to tell me. It is time.
What’s the longest you have stayed in one spot?
Alarna Rose Gray 