Journal page:

Waiting for another round of edits for Blue Hour. Can’t sit still. Ride bike to the park because at least then I’ll be too tired to think about the work ahead, the anxiety that’ll inevitably arrive with it. I haven’t written in a few weeks because my brain is so tired and my hands won’t cooperate with a pen. I don’t even know how to describe things anymore. I should never have taken a small break from writing. Idiot. But I’ve taken my notebook with me. Like always. Time to slow back into words. Ugh. It’s too warm to write now. Sarah, concentrate on what’s around you and write it down otherwise you’ll never do it.

Here: smell of over ripe green grass, of rain that dried up days and days before. Thirsty dirt holding tight to green and white blades, to the tornado of tiny black insects lunging a meter into the air as a dog sprints toward me: that dry-swear fur, of dogs in the back of hot cars, windows down. This the scent of a Friday afternoon in January in Princes Park.

Here: a five year old too big for the light blue tricycle he’s riding. His sibling on a scooter. These mad dash legs. The children sound like crickets.

An older couple walking by me. He: ‘I’m not improving as fast as I want.’ She: ‘yeah’. She draws herself out until she lands on the thing she ought to say. But he’s out of breath, hands begging to hips to slow down, and she says nothing else because… because.

Here: ‘mum! Mummy!’ Somewhere over my shoulder two claps in the air and a dog appears. Shaggy, limping-old, faded ginger fur and flopped ears. Is this mummy? Mummy stirs the insects and they shoot to the sky.