It has been a number of weeks since I last wrote, and I’m well behind my usual schedule. A draft of my June reads still sits patiently in my dashboard and fortnightly Sundays have come and gone with no post, while I find myself remaining here, residing in that liminal space I came to you from last. July 2026 took an unexpected turn, and I continue to sway in the shock of it. My neck injury is going to need more intervention than originally thought, and so - pending all of that - there’s a chance my newsletters might remain a bit helter-skelter while I recover. But it is a joy to be in this place, so I will do my best.
What I have noticed while the days have slowly ticked away at a strange, altered pace, is that no matter what I am experiencing in this body and mind, there is still beauty. It’s everywhere. The other day I decided to turn my armchair around to face the window, and within minutes was rewarded with a flock of gang gangs feasting on some berries in my garden and having a sip of water from my bird bath. The noisy miners were intent on getting rid of them, so it didn’t last long, but they were close enough for me to see the texture of their black feathers (each one etched with a ghostly outline of grey) and the curiosity in their eyes as they tried to figure out how to reach the bird bath on my balcony safely (they made it, eventually).
I’ve seen pink sunrises, heard the chatter of my children, watched clouds make their slow drift across the sky, touched the wattle that is beginning to bloom and felt its exquisite yellow softness on my fingertips. Despite challenges, the world forges on: the river continues to flow, the seasons continue to change, the flowers continue to bloom and decay, the sun continues to rise and set. The world does its work as best it can.
In a meditation I have been favouring there is a line:
You don’t have to be fearless to move forward.
And I see this reflected in the land around me.
It has taken a great deal of attention and observation to remain here in this minute, this minute, this minute. The last few weeks have not been all beauty-filled. They have been hard, and I have leaned on nature to calm me. However, it is a disservice to ourselves and our places to assume nature to always be beautiful, to assume it to always be a salve that can heal, to assume its role as a thing of beauty. Nature is also harsh and rank and full of tragedy. And yet, it continues to move forward.
I sat outside with a cup of tea today and almost instantly a small bug landed in it, and died. As I blinked away tears - for the bug, for myself, for this chapter - I wondered how long it had lived (hours, days?) and the cellular effort it had taken it to simply exist before coming to its end in my mug.
I then looked up to the pair of galahs that have lived in our garden longer than we have lived in this house. The wintry sun continued to lift and soon their branch was alight and glowing and I saw the way they turned their faces and pink bellies towards the warmth.
It’s all happening, at once.
I’ve been reminded of the good when watching this (again and again).
Without having shared my June reads and unlikely to share July, my favourite books over the last few weeks have been [re]turn by Kristen Lang (poetry) and Aborescence by Rhett Davis (fiction).
I’m getting all my dopamine from library holds at the moment. I’m waiting on this and this and this. Have you read any?
I haven’t been reading a lot on Substack because it’s hard to sit at the laptop for any length of time, but I dearly loved Currawong Moon by Kirsten Bradley this week.
On another note: since writing Weather, memory and place I have had people contacting me with their weather stories and it has been delightful. Please, keep them coming. You can send them to me directly, or add yours here.
And that’s quite enough for now.
Until next time, travel light.
P.S. If you enjoyed this edition of Suburban Dreaming, a quick tap on the heart goes a long way, and sharing it helps these words find their people. Thank you, thank you.
Lucinda Bain is a contemporary Australian writer based in Naarm/Melbourne, whose work explores motherhood, place, memory, suburban life and the natural world. Lucinda is mother to three daughters – a role that deeply informs much of her writing. She is currently studying librarianship at the master’s level, which complements her identity as a reader, writer, researcher and observer of how stories locate themselves in both home and landscape.
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