Everything That Travels With You

The entire dome of sky is blue today. Not even a whisper of cloud. Sunlight saturates the land. 

We tend to think of different climates, plants, animals and landscapes, cultures and people. Yet the light is different, around the world, depending on where you sit. 

Here it is open.

Vast open light.

The sort of light that lifts an entire landscape.

The ground, trees, fields, houses and little ribbons of road are held suspended in a cradle of light. It feels like an object, equally important or even the most important feature of the day. 

When you only ever see this light, the days can feel much the same. Many years ago, an artist from the other side of the world commented on my photography, expressing a wistful yearning to witness the open light of the south. I thought about light being different, but it was not until I had been away for a significant amount of time, that I noticed it. It was the first thing I saw.

My year ended with a departure and an arrival

It feels strange to end a year at a point that feels like a start. The closure of a large life chapter, I think is best done in May. December already feels enormous. Yet here I am, in the crossover plain between an old life and the start of a new one. Only this time, in between the transition, I stepped off at a station before my destination to have a quick look around at a place I once knew well. 

My old life still in a suitcase, I returned to the sea, sand and rivers of my childhood. There, as it turns out, an even older life of mine is also in a suitcase. 

There is a core you

You don’t find yourself out there. That is what I discovered while travelling. So it really should come as no surprise that the core you is evident in your childhood. In fact, that is where it shines more uninhibitedly and visibly. I discovered this when trying to pare down a chest of memorabilia packed by my seventeen-year-old self and stored away until now. 

I was delighted to see my writing was strong and that I noticed water reflections, trees and light. I cried to see that I was lonely and looking for meaning and struggling to find my path. I threw out sport carnival streamers, a small wooden car I made in woodwork, a piece of seaweed I collected on the day I moved house. Through the muddle of mixed tapes, diaries, ephemera and ridiculously emotional yet optimistic letters, I can see that my desire, longing, belonging and sense of displacement were there all along. 

I still write lists, process thoughts through a pen, expect improvements in my future and wish to escape it all. I have found no resolution to this.

I seem to pack my life up into suitcases

A full paring down of this kind has occurred six times in my life so far. 

Yet I was still surprised to find out that my younger self was also wandering and on the cusp of a restless quest.

I wander. In thought and in place

This is me.

But it turns out that the world is vast and full of opportunity, and I want it to be so. 

I am no closer to being finished, but I can see now that all the parts of me never left. 

You can’t pack your life into a suitcase. It has always travelled with you.

The Wild Hours is the writing practice of Australian artist and writer,  Isa June. A collection of essays, photographs and observations that explore the shimmer and ache of motherhood, domesticity, memory, travel, aging and the creative journey as an artist.