Bats, bandicoots & Big Noticing
Last night I drove into the city on dusk, along the Eastern Freeway with the remnants of the autumn sunset glowing up ahead, and suddenly, above me, the sky was filled with bats. I’ve seen the fruit bats of Melbourne do their thing before, but never, ever have I seen them like that - car speeding in one direction while above me thousands of black-winged creatures clouded overhead. I grinned. I think I gasped out loud. The early evening excursion into the city which I’d been feeling ho-hum about was suddenly, totally worth it.
Maybe, if I’d had the same experience a couple of weeks back I’d have had the same mind-blown feels, but I doubt it. I’m in the post-camping Big Noticing phase: that bit of time when you return from holidays and everything is dialled up a notch - how GOOD do those clean sheets feel, omigod a hot shower, LOOK! at the colour the grape vine on the deck has turned, wow - the birds are so loud…
Maybe Big Noticing comes from being offline for a week: there’s no phone reception down on the perfect bay where we camp under the banksias, just slumbering goannas and big waves and a huge flock of crested terns and seagulls that wheel out over the waves when we walk past then circle back to gather again on the sand. The kids roam as a gang - screen-free and wild - and we sit by the fire or balance on SUPS in the creek and read and read and read.
Or maybe it comes from those big biophilia feels of living under canvas and stars for a week; of knowing the weather not because you’ve checked it on BOM but because you can smell the rain coming, see what the clouds are doing, know when high tide is going to make the trek to Magic Beach tricky. Every night we waited for the bandicoots to come out, they snuffled around the campsite looking for crumbs we had left, sometimes sniffing our boots. We’ve never seen them here before. Turns out the bushfires, and then a concerted effort by rangers to eradicate foxes, cats and wild dogs has meant the bandicoot population here has flourished. Bats too, for the first time in a long time. The camp hosts told us this proudly and you could feel their joy - watching wildlife thrive after it had been so devastated on this part of the coast.
At one point, late morning post campfire breakfast and on our third pot of coffee, we sat and watched the birds in the trees. Grown ups and kids alike. ‘It’s like a movie,’ someone said. We tried to count how many different birds we could see, then started counting butterflies too. This is what I reckon Big Noticing is. And I try to bring it home with me.
It’s a kind of acute present-ness, a ‘being-in-the-moment’ approach (a missive which I, too, regularly roll my eyes at, but like hydrating more and getting enough sleep, realise does actually work). Madeline Dore’s recent post On Setting Things Aside struck a chord:
Instead of thinking about all these things we don’t have, can’t do or won’t be for some time, we can place them in our mind’s cloakroom in order to focus on what we have right now.
What all this ‘right now’, ‘being in the moment’, Big Noticing did for me last week was help me NOT THINK about the fact that ARCs of my new novel, The Hummingbird Effect, were zooming out around the country to early readers (cue: vomitous, thrilled, tender-heart feelings). I’m trying to hold on to Brigid Delaney’s idea of the stoic control test from her excellent Reasons Not To Worry: there is now nothing I can do about the reception of this book I’ve written - it’s out of my control from here, thus I shouldn’t invest my energy into worrying about it.
Easier said than done.
There’s still work to do - proofreading and cutting down the acks to 600 words on the instructions of my darling editor (they are currently at 1200 words and I thought THAT was slim) - but I’ve also got a brand new word document called ‘Book 4 Journal’ and an idea that’s simmering away and that is something I’m willing to throw all my Big Noticing behind. K xx
What I’ve
Been Reading
Oh, the joys of holiday reading! Some of the highlights…
Finally sunk into the delight of debut novel The Heart is a Star from Megan Rogers (who is our Follow A First Timer guest on The First Time Podcast). Beautifully written, will absolutely capture the hearts of messy mid-life women.
Devoured Eleanor Catton’s Birnham Wood. So. Damn. Clever.
Read Robbie Arnott’s Limberlost under the trees while camping, and yes yes yes you were all correct, he is a sublime writer.
Powered through Amie Kaufman’s brand new YA fantasy Isle of the Gods in preparation for my convo with her for The First Time Podcast - LOVED IT! And have loved deep diving on Amie’s process as I prep for the interview - check out Amie’s excellent substack and podcast.
Another YA MUST READ is the about to be released Royals by Tegan Bennett Daylight. My 12yo daughter stole this first and DID NOT MOVE until she had finished it. I did the same - a one-sitting read for me. Six teens (and a baby) trapped in a shopping centre - it’s utterly brilliant.
Got Coming Up
Tomorrow night I’m running a free online workshop on Creative Resilience for Manningham Libraries. Thursday April 27, 6.30pm. Waitlist only but register if you are keen as there may be last minute cancellations! Registration here.
Can’t wait to celebrate Claire Christian’s fabulous new novel West Side Honey at Readings Carlton, Monday May 8th, 6.30pm. Free but bookings required.
So much in this glorious newsletter again dear Kate. Have always loved your words and the way they take me to places: memories of those bats circling overhead one autumn night a few years back, maybe it's an autumn thing; the noticing of EVERYTHING when at the beach, switched off and BEING with nature and loved ones and sharing it all together; and now too, vicariously, I share a little of your anxiety about THE, but just know any anxiety you have is unfounded, I feel in my bones that THE is going to fly!