Reflections of a writer: in the draft room

In the wilderness a young girl wanders with feet bare. She is one with the earth and her movements echo nature’s rhythms. Sister wind plays with her hair as mother sun warms her. Grandmother moon watches quietly. 

As the cicadas sing the heat of the day awake, the young girl gathers wildflowers. She crouches down near the rocks, and gently plucks from the cracks a small flower. Pinched between her thumb and finger she holds it up to the sun. She witnesses the delicate flower and bows to its strength, honouring what the flower has gone through to push herself through the earth to come to being. She places it among the colourful bunch she holds in her other hand, and then she lays them all on the ground before her. She stands back and takes in their different shapes and colours. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, filling her nostrils and lungs with their scent. Their story now settling in the spaces of her body and bringing the whisper of a smile to her cheeks. 

This is how we came to be together in the draft room yesterday. A gathering of Anthologia authors. Each of us the gathered and the gatherer. At the same time. We are the wild flowers growing in the rock. We are the wild girl with feet bare. And we are the delicate aroma of stories. 

In the draft room one author sat outside a cafe with the rainbow of sunshine streaking across her screen. Others sat in a room in their house or work space. On a comfy couch or chair. Perhaps one author was sitting on her bed. Although the colour and shape of the sky above each of us was different, we gathered under the one sun, the one moon, the same stars behind the clouds. We came warmed by the belly of our mothers; with the wisdom of our all-seeing grandmothers.

It was a glorious hour of sharing. Each author invited to speak the title and essence of their story for the upcoming issue of Anthologia. As titles and storytelling passed from moving lips, and were breathed out into the draft room to land in our hearts, Anthologia arrived. And she is beautiful.

We are at different stages of writing and together we listened to the joys and struggles, offered ideas and suggestions. As a community of writers we celebrated the dirt of it all. With dust on our hands and grit in our teeth. We laughed. We cried.

The titles and stories are not mine to reveal, but each one moved me. Some warmly washed over me and made me smile. Others grabbed me urgently and stopped my breath. 

Not one was not worthy of being told. The ink of these stories will rest on Anthologia’s pages to be read. These are stories called to be passed over the threshold of time. For the wild girl inside us all, has far to wander, with the wind in her hair.

Photo captured on the glorious Larapinta trail