I started to write this post from the departure lounge of Melbourne airport, watching as passengers disembarked a Qantas flight, waiting for our turn to board. I didn’t get very far in my writing; just an opening paragraph or two. That was several days ago. Time has since skipped forward and here I find myself editing the past.
Our destination was the far west of Australia and Perth’s beachy suburb of Cottesloe. The nearly four hours of flying—journeying form east to west—reminded me just how vast this country is. Vast and flat and dry. Until one gets to the sea, of course. Then it’s all here’s-the-ocean-so-suck-it-up-city-boy.
Nestled up against this view, life is calming. The waves of the Indian Ocean crash against me. The varied trials of 2024 are shed from my skin. The locals—adapted to such cleansing air—exude health. Lithe and tan, they are, in many ways, the postcard of Australian beach culture.
The end of a year inevitably brings with it a period of reflection, a time to stare at what has transpired and think on what has yet come to pass. I enjoy these moments. I slow my body down until I can perceive the very rotation of the Earth and can sense its precise celestial path. Soon enough the Gregorian hand will click over and December will become January, the Earth oblivious to the arbitrary threshold it has crossed.
What will 2025 bring, I wonder. What changes will have been enacted a year from now? This space—this niche I set about creating near two years ago—is not one for politics or the environment or world events, dire and important as such issues are. No. Here I form an intention to allow an outward breath from my soul. To see what residues of creativity can crystallise as the vapours of my own hope are exhaled onto the page.
Much joy has been had in watching such words and worlds unfold: a porcelain cat, a strange stone, a GirlWhoTextedLikeThis. There was a thermos filled with sausages and other such things. I won’t link them; I don’t like doing that. The stories are there to be found, should you so wish. The propellant—the fuel I need and crave—is in finding what stories emerge moving forward.
I’m all too aware that I’ve had a (necessary) break this last month or so and things have slowed, both in reading and in writing. But I look forward to hitting 2025 with my mind filled with wonder, inspired by time away from work, time with family and friends, time beneath the Australian sun and sea. Time that allows a reset and reflection and reframing and possibly many other words that begin with the same letter.
I was going to write about some highlights of the year, but all I can think of is the book Solenoid. It’s all I think about every day. The Workshop of the Moon, the boat-shaped house, the disused factory and gigantic cylinders of wire buried beneath Bucharest’s streets. Some nights, I hold a magnet to the side of my skull, hoping it will wipe out the part of my brain that has any knowledge of the words uncoiled by the author whose name I cannot spell, all so that come morning, waking in the stupor of the kerosene dawn, my mind is bewitched anew by what it finds there upon the shelf.
I could write of other things. I could write of the moving brilliance of All Of Us Strangers and how Josephine and I sat there stunned by what we’d just watched. I could talk of the number of times I’ve listened to a certain piece of music featuring an Armenian duduk, of how my strange abdominal scars seem the only knowledge that a certain surgery took place, of how some mornings I have deliberately missed my train stop just so I could remain hidden in my seat to keep reading, denying the start to the working day. I could talk about finally tackling Moby Dick, to how much I’ve lamented not holding a deck of cards for most of the year up until this week, or to the mind-bending brilliance of Billy Basso coding the indie game Animal Well.
But I won’t.
I’ll just leave you with a picture of the lovely plant-filled nook I write this post from (thank you, Loretta), and say the biggest thank you to you, to you who chooses to read my words, whether regularly or infrequently or even for the first time. It’s a little miracle I am grateful for, one that keeps a hope alive that someday, someday I might switch to writing full time. So, thank you. I wish you the very best for this festive time of year. May you be happy, may you be healthy, may you be free.
Here’s to the stories that 2025 has in store.
I hope you’ll join me.
—NS
Enjoy your time away from Substack. And when you’re ready, maybe in classic Jackson Pollock style , words will spill out, splashing wildly, in a tornado of colors. Left to dry, and it all makes perfect sense. Behold a masterpiece for the ages.
Happy new season and a joy filled, healthy & happy new year. Here’s to new stories buried deep in those crevices from unknown places. Will be patiently waiting to see the word SLAKE in my mailbox again. See you when I read you…😊📬
My friend, I greatly enjoyed your reflection on 2024. It's always a pleasure to visit your Stack.
"of how some mornings I have deliberately missed my train stop just so I could remain hidden in my seat to keep reading"
I hope this is true! Keep this part of yourself.