Hello, dear Joy Risers,
Click play to listen, and scroll to the bottom of this transcript for an episode-inspired creativity provocation.
Welcome to the November episode of Notes to Self, my solo podcast made for you, by me, at my desk here, fuelled this month by endless cups of Bushells Tea and a heartfelt desire to offer company and comfort to your creative self.
If you are joining me here for the first time, this podcast seeded from the notes to myself I have been jotting down at the beginning of every month now for years. My hope in sharing my notes to myself is that they might offer resonance or support to your creative life too.
Just a week ago, I travelled from the northwest of England, autumn on the cusp of winter, to the southeast coast of Queensland on Bundjalung Country, the place that raised and made me, spring on the cusp of summer. No matter how many times I have the privilege of making this journey, it always, always strips me bare. My time in the UK was a mincer. Two levelling, challenging months that pushed me often to what felt like my brink, mentally, and one month that brimmed with so much of everything that makes being human miraculous - creativity, discovery, connection, kindness, community - I feel like I’ll be running off the charge of it for months to come.
As I adjust and acclimatise, both physically and mentally, to coming home (both in my beautiful bricks and mortar dwelling, with my little garden, but also in my body from the alienation of wicked, ruthless jetlag) I followed my lead from October’s Notes to Self and wrote just one for November. It is this:
