Yesterday I went to Tullycavan to do some work, which was basically the continued bracken cutting. When I'd finished I was worn out, but the day was glorious so a walked around to survey the place. I don't think that I can capture the sense of place that this gives me. In summer the dragonflies wending their way in search of? I love the randomness of the way that the grass grows, its fecundity in season. Its variety and variousness. I love my sense achievement in knocking over the bracken, perhaps it's sad for the bracken, but it lets other plants grow free and says that in the future we will be productive here. When I walk to our wood lot I look at the fat blue gums and feel the danger that there would be in felling them to get their wood for the fire. From the cusp of the gully I look down at the waterhole and know the importance of its water through the summer of livestock drinking from the troughs it supplies. Lastly when I walk to the studio to collect my stuff I find a potent accumulation of memory, verdant with life. On this piece of land I feel a sense of being able to walk free in a way that I can't in other places. There is something personal about this place, an embedded relationship invested with emotion and sentiment, poignant with contingency because we may not hold it forever. Circumstances may call us to move too far away to hold it, to move on. I pray and hope that this isn't what we're called to.
