Its a very dark and wet autumn Sydney day, and its taken me until midday to get out of the pijamas and make some breakfast. My room is a jumble of boxes and those things you do not know where to put, broken necklaces, bits of film, bow ties, and general nostalgia that I toss up taking or leaving, shoving in a box and hiding it here to get older. I start to consider the need of things, what to spend precious money on, or time relocating. what books will I take but never look at? What items will sit in a room and speak of me?
 How will a house fit together with the collage of life bits, mostly either inherited, gifted, handmade or sentimental.
I try to discard the junk but want to fill this new home with as much charm as I can! Its a hard thing to imagine, the nature a space will hold, and my excitement cant get ahead of me. I am not at all nervous and even less so after speaking to the university this morning. The head of department took my news to relocate to Braidwood so warmly, and excitedly informed me of the wonderful arts community there, and how the course is just what I'm looking for and will definitely find networks and programs that will support me and keep me connected.
My only real concern is isolation, yet thats more of a precaution, and a good one, that will help me draw new friends and communities into my life.

I envisage; A studio, light filled and organized. I envisage fireplace reading spots, shared dinners, baked goods, walls of gifted and collaborated artworks, flowers in everything, lanterns and weekend visitors, bushwalking trails and horse smells, second-hand sales and new academic friends, things created to share, ceramic, print, cloth, card, wallpaper. Collectives. Herbs and veggies. Dad coming to build a chook shed to get hot little eggs for breakfast. Local events, day trips to the sea, casseroles, Jimmy's garlic, woodpiles, winter mornings, endless pots of tea, painting trips, drawing days, picnics on mount Gillamatong, visits to other small towns as yet undiscovered. Summer swims in the Shoalhaven, family lunches, horse rides through snowy mountains, and a cash job.

Right now, I enter that world of to-do lists and gumtree.com, wardrobes, ikea, second hand shops, $2 shops, boxes, sifting and sorting, hunting, like a seasoned consumer, for the building blocks of a life to be lived in.

We have just gone through the belly of the house here in Avalon, and pulled out bits of family history we thought were gone forever. Baby photos of uncles I have never heard of, and the debris of kids who have picked up and left in a hurry, shoving inconsequential paperwork in boxed heap, tangles of cords and fabric, moth eaten umbrellas, and that stuff we keep and watch die.
A couple of great things though, I managed to wrangle out of the chaos, most notably those lovely old vintage wall-hanging maps, and some crockery mum made years ago. Along with hand-me-down willow pattern plates, Granny Bet's old wool blankets in apricot and plum, and some lovely little side tables with slender timber legs.

I pray the move from one life to another will run smooth and not take too long, up-rooting is a strange sensation, and these objects cry out to me for their transition to be swift, as they are as eager as I to start a new and useful life.