Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER
I set off from my home in the leafy Eastern suburbs to the bushy outskirts not too far away. A knot of anxiety tightened in my gut, partly from having to navigate a new destination and partly from that niggling doubt about starting a new relationship with a new therapist. The day was hot and dry. It was midway through an unremarkable Melbourne summer, but the Black Saturday fires of 2009 remained a not-so-distant memory. I located the house down a rough dirt road. Dust swirled from under my tyres as I pulled into the driveway and parked under a huge gum tree. There was a sign at the bottom of some steps directing me upwards along the edge of a garden and around to the side of the house. Another sign attached to a door instructed me to “please don’t knock, I’ll be with you shortly”. I looked about, noticed a couple of water tanks, some vegetables and herbs growing in elevated containers and a table and chairs where I guessed I was supposed to sit and wait my turn. It was perfectly still, and quiet, except for the birds and the muted tones of a woman’s voice coming from somewhere inside – a one way conversation, a skype consultation I later discovered. I wondered about living there, the peace, the solitude, the bush, the risk of fire.
The next time I visited she led me out to the front of the house. The view was expansive, stunning, drawing my eyes across the treetops, down into the valley and then upwards to the range beyond. I followed her to the edge of a steep drop and together we peered at the slow flowing river below. Ripples fluttered across the surface. “Could be a platypus” she said. “We see them here, often”. She turned and pointed to a weather-worn wooden seat, telling me that some of her clients liked to arrive early and sit there for a few minutes prior to their appointments. From then on I did just that. I would rush from work, anxious to arrive with enough time to spare that I might make my way up the path and around the house, out to that seat, to sit and let my body and mind relax, to breathe out the stresses of the day and breathe in the serenity that surrounded me . Sometimes the scene took my breath away. Sometimes I felt tears pricking my eyes. Sometimes I felt apprehensive about what the next hour might hold. Sometimes I just sat and thought about nothing much at all.
It became my place of refuge.
I wrote the skeleton of this piece six years ago and wondered what I might do with it. Today’s Gunnas Masters Class gave me the inspiration to revisit.