Adventure Calls

I have travelled to a lot of places in my lifetime, but never to India - until now.  The inspirational lightbulb is on and dozens of ideas are buzzing around.

You can keep up-to-date with my writing journey on my special blog Mullum to Mumbai where I will be documenting my travels as well as the process of writing over the next two-three months.

Frogs Trilling

'If we can discover the meaning in the trilling of a frog, perhaps we may understand why it is for us not merely noise but a song of poetry and emotion.'- Adrian Forsyth

If you've ever walked through a wetland you will know the trill of a frog. But did you know these multi-lingual creatures offer poetry no matter where you travel?

cra-cra (Italian)
ribbit (English)
vrak (Turkish)
kwaak (German)
kum-kum (Polish)
op op (Thai)
brekeke (Hungarian)
kerokero (Japanese)

Next time you hear them, make sure you sing along.

Harmony

The bundle of conference papers LJ carried was becoming crumpled as she scanned the eager faces of the crowd for the colleague she was meant to meet. Hawaii was the third Pacific country she’d been to this week, and the novelty of airports was wearing thin. As the humidity engulfed her, she wondered again about the impact of global warming, and was grateful for a job that enabled her to make a positive difference, however small.

‘Sorry!’ her colleague called, pushing through the crowd to help LJ with her bags. ‘I was running on local time.’

‘Are we doing the set-up today?’ LJ asked, referring to the conference preparations. She liked to make sure the meeting rooms were arranged and the microphones and PowerPoint were working. Last minute glitches with technology were all too frequent, and detracted from the message she was here to present.

‘Sure,’ said her colleague who knew from experience that LJ would not be happy until after the venue was sorted.

Looking at the lectern and the circle of chairs LJ was reminded of the heated discussions she had attended recently in Kiribati. Delegates from some of the smaller Pacific Islands had been frustrated by the higher ocean levels and the repeated inundation of their homes. They threatened a walk-out at the apparent lack of commitment to change on the part of larger, more developed nations. It had taken all her powers of persuasion to prevent this happening and to move the discussion along. In the end an agreement of sorts had been reached, and she now looked forward to months of shuttle diplomacy as the details were refined.

I need some fresh air,’ LJ announced, suddenly realising that her jetlag was taking hold.

'Come on,' replied her colleague.

An hour later, standing on a mountain outside the city, LJ followed her colleague as she shared some simple poses. ‘You will feel the power of the island inside you,’ her colleague said, beginning to stretch.

To her surprise, as LJ emulated the island’s rugged peaks by pointing her toes to the sky, a sense of calm and equilibrium enveloped her. When she curved her body like the waves rolling in and settling on the sand below, she realised they had travelled across the expanse of the Pacific. Just like me, she thought. 

The next day at the conference, buoyed by the island’s energy, LJ found that an unusual harmony had calmed the fractious delegates. She drew in a deep breath, remembering the feeling she had experienced as she stretched in the sun. From now on, she resolved, I will carry the strength of the mountain and the persistence of the waves inside me. 

As a Hawaiian song drifted across the conference room, LJ hoped there might one day be a solution to the rising tides that battered islands like Kiribati.

The Caravan has Arrived

Tonight at Gorman House, the Emerging Writers Festival Canberra Caravan took a virtual tour through Cambodia, China, Dubai, the United States and Mongolia as writers shared their stories and poems. Across the landscape of relationships, adventure tourism, 'anti-semantism', escape routes and equine entrails, the panel touched down before heading to Sydney tomorrow. And not a guide book in sight !

Canberra Caravan Panel

Review: The Signature of All Things

When Alma Whittaker was born in Pennsylvania in 1800, her father ‘did not mind that the infant was not a boy, nor that it was not pretty’.  Thus Alma’s journey to understand herself, the form of natural things, and her place in the world began.

Defying the maxim that a woman’s place was in the home, Alma’s love of botany saw her story intertwined with that of Joseph Banks, Charles Darwin, Alfred Russell Wallace and the European age of naval and scientific exploration.

Alma was fascinated by those metaphors for human society, mosses, whose achingly slow growth she maps. She was also enthralled by orchids, drawn so exquisitely by Mr Ambrose Pike, an unexpected guest whose spiritualist approach to life changed Alma forever.  But it was the orchid’s exotic cousin, Tahitian vanilla, that posed a set of puzzles Alma followed half-way round the world.

A tribute to all scientific women, this lyrical account of Alma’s quest for knowledge is likely to start you on your own journey for the signature of all things.

The Signature of All Things

Elizabeth Gilbert, 2013

Bloomsbury

499 pp. 

ISBN 9781408841891

Mice don't need to travel...

…because they can find great cheese nearly anywhere.

The tartan clad McMouse in St Andrews only needs to take up residence in the cheese shop on South Street to live out her days in luxury, tripping between the wheels of gorgonzola in the window, and the emmenthaler on the shelf. ‘Auch, forget the golf,’ she says, nibbling on a crumb, ‘any self-respecting traveller can smell the cheese before they even make it in the door.’

In Spain the lucky El Mouso living at Montserrat Monastery can look down on his comrades in nearby Barcelona. ‘I like to sit right here on the edge of the cliff on market day,’ says El Mouso, ‘it’s an excellent place to enjoy the local cheese or a fig or a little drop of honey while I watch the tourists take the cable car to the monastery.’

Cheese in Sarlat waiting to be tested by Madame Souris

Madame Souris in Sarlat, France, has the run of Place de la Liberte except on Wednesdays and Saturdays when she has to watch out for the vendors setting up their food stalls. ‘But I don’t mind at all,’ she says, ‘because I can taste any cheese I like while I listen to the buskers and afterwards have a nice nap in the cathedral.’

If you were a mouse, where would you find your favourite cheese ?