Yesterday was a day of cooking and chores. I don’t want to toot my own horn but wow those recipes turned out well! The “Anytime corn and chive pancakes” are ridiculously moreish and I was tempted to repeat the recipe at full size (professional recipes are always for ten serves) immediately upon finishing the first batch. As for the stuffed zucchini blossoms, they were a little bit (read stupidly) expensive. Thankfully, they were a one off and still not as expensive as a dinner out. I don’t see how anyone not working at a restaurant would have them in their regular meals rotation unless they had a veggie garden and a small hatred for actual zucchini. However, they tasted like their worth! Crunchy bread-crumbed outside and soft savoury stuffing in the inside. What I paid for in ingredients I would have (before learning how to make them myself, maybe) paid for happily on a night out. I can see why they were in the professional cookbook as they are a worthy meal to splash out on. As for the rest of the day, chores are boring, and I won’t go into detail beyond saying I dominated our apartment so hard it was embarrassed that it tried to pass itself off as a home beforehand.

Today, I went on an artist date with a friend. No, an artist date isn’t a date between two artists (although we both are), it is a day where you take your inner artist out for a date to spoil it and I happened to have external company as well. An inner artist (as introduced by Julia Cameron in the artist way) is the bit of a person that takes joy in the play and beauty in life, the spontaneity and unpredictability. It is the opposite of the inner critic (for those of you who new to this blog I explain the inner critic here: http://www.cadenamckenzie.com/blog/2020/1/17/sparring-with-my-inner-critic). It is the little child in us that takes delight in googly eyes on rock pets, that enjoys twirly dresses, that thinks buying a lollypop at the supermarket as a reward for doing the grocery shop is just the best thing ever! It is the part of us that takes joy in the small things. It is also the part of us that gets restless and bored when we have been working hard or trying too long to do one thing or even creative work. While it is the source of creative output it also gets tired. The ideas come a little less frequently, may run around the same circles or may even run out. I find it is a good idea to fill the tank every now and then by intentionally finding something that inspires the inner artist again.

As some of you know, the town I am based in (Canberra, Australia) has been surrounded by bush fires for about two months now. Having explored the area well beforehand, we decided to go out and see what has become of the areas that are now cleared for re-entry.

It was confronting. Driving through the mountains, high enough to be able to see through valleys way into the distance felt wrong. It was like the haunting intimacy of seeing a balding woman without her wig on. You know you shouldn’t be able to see that much of the bald landscape underneath the trees and yet, there it was on display. The trees were charred and black or red like the bark of gums, accustomed to being cooked and falling off in sheets, efficiently setting about the process of regrowth after many fire seasons. Amongst this sepia toned landscape, a small shock of green. A flamboyance of colour burst forth as a creeper winds its green foliage up a charcoal trunk basking in so much revealed sunlight. Further along near a dry creek bed a fern leaf continues to grow beneath scorched edges, looking like a lush emerald, gold tipped feather of a tropical bird.

The circumstances are horrible, there have been many people displaced and many homes lost. Even for those not directly affected, the months of smoke heavy air and glowing horizons have left an entire state (or in this case, 3) with the effects of persistent low-grade stress. But one thing that never ceases to amaze me is that nature, however harsh and unforgiving the circumstances, finds a way to return. Along the way, it brings beauty. It is this beauty I sought today, and it delivered.