What do bush regeneration, creative writing and household decluttering have to do with each other?
“Weeding is not warfare,” wrote our Conservation and Land Management lecturer, Di Harwood, in big green letters on the whiteboard last term. And this axiom captures the essence of her gentle approach to regenerating local bushland reserves. Again and again she has stressed there is nothing to gain from hating the weeds that threaten our native bush, nor from attacking them in ruthless blitzes that might look impressive initially, but are sure to have a disappointing impact in the long-term. Razing weeds to the ground, leaving large disturbed patches of earth only opens the way for more weeds to move in. Opportunistic by nature, they will overtake these patches faster than the natives, and we, the exhausted weeders, will watch with dismay as they grow more dominant than ever.
Instead, Di suggests, we begin with those areas of the local reserves where the bush is strongest, where the natives have the upper hand and gently seek out and remove any plants that do not belong. Never fast and furious, but calm and considered: in a patch of Dolichos Pea, we trace each plant to its roots, removing them one by one, gently patting the surface material back over the disturbed earth, creating small spaces around young natives so they have enough light and nourishment to grow strong.
One of my fellow CLM students traces a Dolichos Pea to its roots.
Recently, I went out for dinner with my friend, Madeleine, who was encouraging me to organise and declutter my home.
“But it’s so overwhelming,” I said. “I don’t know where to start.”
“Choose one small area at a time…don’t try and be logical about it. Just choose the one that jumps out at you or the one that’s bothering you the most at the time, or even the one that looks easiest to tackle. The important thing is to start, and to chip away at it bit by bit.”
I took her advice to heart and decided shortly after to tackle the children’s board games – with pieces distributed far and wide across our five bedroom house, and all mixed together in the wrong boxes, it was a mammoth task that took three of us a good half-day.
The before picture was too scary to upload!
“You’ll be amazed by what you find,” said Madeleine, “and by the new energy that comes with each ordering and letting go.”
She was right. That first afternoon the boys and I rediscovered many old favourite games and even some new ones we hadn’t played together before – like Rummy-Oh. We rebuilt several decks of cards, filled a jar with dice, sorted out the Monopoly, Life and other play money, which had all been stashed away in an old wallet by my youngest, Samuel, and even managed to offload a bunch of games we agreed weren’t that fun. Since then we’ve enjoyed several family games nights and moved on in our decluttering project to tackle the boys’ bedrooms, my office and even the gutters around the house still clogged with last year’s autumn leaves.
Sitting down to write today, I discovered my creative mind is a lot like my house…full of many unfinished projects, neglected dreams and discarded ideas. I’ve written three versions of a memoir, still not quite finished, begun a young adult fantasy that was shortlisted for a Varuna fellowship last year and made several attempts to blog. A recent family crisis has taken me away from my writing projects and I return now to find this garden of words overgrown and chaotic.
In the mental space that is arising as I gradually order my home, I am finding time again to write. Like an impatient bushland warrior, I want to tear out the weeds of all those strangled ideas and visions that never led anywhere to find the natives: the ideas and stories that are truly mine and that only I can tell. But which is which? I’m not sure. And as I wrote this morning, following one strand after another, I realised the writing journey is a lot like the gentle arts of bushland regeneration and decluttering my home as taught to me by Di and Madeleine.
Before I can uncover stories that have the potential to grow strong and tall, I must sort through all those other thoughts and ideas that sit on the surface of my mind…each of them clamouring for attention, insisting on their own importance and potential. And perhaps I will need to sit with some of them awhile and listen, to let them spill out their stories, however inconsequential. These strands of thought are often linked, as plants link to each other, their root systems tangling, their branches overlapping or one plant wrapping its tendrils around another and reaching for the light. By following what seems an trivial thread, I may find a bigger story waiting to be liberated from a tangle of aspirations, ambitions and insights.
In the meantime, all I need to do is keep showing up at the blank page or screen, allowing the writing to map its own journey through the undergrowth, to find its own shape, purpose and rhythm, beyond the reach of logical plans or imitative dreams. And so I begin these Tangled Tales: Unravelling the Connections.
5 comments
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May 5, 2010 at 8:08 pm
Filippa
Hi Nicola, wow you have set your blog up so beautifully! Love the photo in your header. In Japan, it is traditional to spend the weeks leading to the New Year spring (or rather winter) cleaning. Out with the old, in with the new. Clean, tidy, de-cobweb, sort. I decided to adopt that tradition last year and spent the last week of the year madly sorting and cleaning. I woke up on New Year’s Day with a clear head for the first time in ages and in the days and weeks that followed, was able to make some very important decisions about my life and the direction it was heading in. In my frantically busy life, I find it very hard to allocate time to cleaning and particularly to sorting and decluttering. There are always more important things to do. But when I take the time to do it, suddenly everything else becomes easier and we all breathe easier in our little house.
(I’d like to see the before photo of the games!!)
May 5, 2010 at 8:41 pm
write2unravel
Thanks, Pip! Yes, Madeleine told me this would happen…but it’s still a surprise to discover how much clearer I feel about many things just from taking these first few steps towards decluttering our home. The before photo is messy, but doesn’t do justice to how far and wide we had to search for missing pieces. I love your blog “Zen House Play House” about finding a balance between living a relaxed family life and having occasional zen days or moments where you can rest serene in a clean tidy home. I also like the idea of “autumn cleaning” instead of spring cleaning (or as well as)…since this is the time of year the deciduous leaves shed their leaves, perhaps it’s also time for us to do some shedding.
May 6, 2010 at 9:55 pm
mirjana
Congratulations Nicola on the launch of your blog. Isn’t it wonderful that such vistas appear before us once we are willing to be led? Since heeding the call to start the course, I feel as though I am seeing with ‘new’ eyes. Grateful for this sharing of YOUR beautifully articulated insights. Interesting to note that the southern hemisphere has just had it’s Hallowe’en…winter’s gateway. A time to literally and metaphorically rid our lives of dead wood. So shed away!
May 6, 2010 at 10:04 pm
Nicola
Yes, I remember Mark Parre talked about this at the start of the year…when we were each sharing our dreams about where this course might take us. I talked then about writing articles and designing courses that would combine environmental education with artistic expression and personal growth. Mark warned us to be careful what we wished for as life might very well provide an opportunity to realise that dream, and we should be ready to walk through the door when it opened. Here I am! My first steps into a whole new world of creativity and inspiration.
May 16, 2010 at 4:12 pm
Nicola
A friend recently gave a photocopied extract from a book called “Feng Shui for the Soul” by Denise Linn. In it she says “Clearing your clutter is one of the quickest ways to change your life, but proceed carefully. Clearing too much clutter too fast can cause a healing crisis. We are so attached to our stuff that sometimes when clutter leaves our home it can feel like losing part of ourselves….However, if you go slowly and carefully, your entire life can change softly, easily and magically.” And then she goes on to say “As you clear away some of the internal and external debris and blockages in your home, it becomes easier to bring about your dreams, sometimes in an almost mystical fashion.”
I wanted to share these quotes here, as they are relevant to my first post. My own decluttering process continues slowly, but surely…and as I proceed, new creative possibilities are emerging (from the undergrowth, as it were!)