Written 20 August 2020.
We exclaim about the light all week. It’s because the he trees that have shadowed us are gone. I’m not a tree hater. In fact, I love trees. In early childhood, trees were my parents. I’d sit with trees and confide in them, not humans. I can still remember my favourite, a huge old gum tree that shed red bark that took my breath away; it seemed like a beautiful person throwing down their red clothes.
All week I spent preparing my two-hour zoom lecture to the ANU composers. I needed to get the students up to speed because on 28 August, my pin-up hero neuroscientist, Professor Liane Gabora of the University of British Columbia has agreed to zoom talk to them, and I want them to understand what she’s saying, and get the most out of this marvellous opportunity. I’ve been summarising several key chapters and papers she’s written, to give them a potted version. She’s rare amongst neuroscientists because she understands artistic creativity. I’ve discovered she writes fiction, and she’s sent us a piece of music she’s composed. It’s on her website, so it’s no secret.
https://people.ok.ubc.ca/lgabora/
When I requested it, she sent me music she’d composed.
But tomorrow our new batteries are due to be delivered and installed, and the timing is sure to be wrong- they’ll come just as i give my zoom lecture.
Solar Simon early afternoon texts to say they won’t be delivered at all, because they’re coming from Melbourne and the truck has been held up at the border with Victoria, as everything now is, as NSW scrambles to keep virus numbers low. That’s great- my lecture will be fine- but it’s a disaster, because we’re really limping now with our old batteries. No matter how much sun we now have, our batteries can’t hold it. Another solar power lesson we’ve learned: if the batteries that store solar power can’t take in the power they’re designed for, they wear out fast. As our batteries have done, shadowed by our neighbours’ tall trees. We should’ve lopped them years ago.
At 5pm, Solar Simon texts to say they’ve arrived after all, and he can deliver them – but between 9am and 12. As I predicted! My lecture begins at 12. If anything goes wrong, we may be without power. This mustn’t happen. i do three things: text Solar Simon and tell him the problem, email our new neighbour the lovely T and ask can I borrow his boasted again, and tell Dy.
Within minutes, everyone’s there for me. Solar Simon offers his house in the next bay- no one’s in it at the moment, and I can do my lecture using his Wifi. That makes me teary. Dy offers the use of his tiny cottage, where he has excellent internet, even though he’d have to cower in his kitchen for ttwo hours. That makes me cry. T offers his boatshed, cups of tea, snacks from the larder, and sends a photo with a highlighted red circle of where his key is stored. He says that he’s thinking of naming his boatshed The Woolfe Wing. That makes me laugh.
I accept T’s offer of the Woolfe Wing. I’m awed by kindness. I text R, my friend in the city, marvelling. She texts back:
Aren’t real community marvellous – are rare. But only those that are generous and alive can plug into community, even if it’s right under their noses- like secret associations of fairies.
Has it been under my nose all along, and it took escaping from the city to see it?