On Movement and Landing Home

Reflections on our nomadic experiment

Flying over Queensland | Photo by Lisa Bolin

I’ve landed after being in constant motion. Our whole trip to Australia was one of motion and momentum interspersed by moments of rest and recovery. 

At times, I felt like I was underwater; my senses dulled. My soggy brain took in things through a watery filter, my body bloated, retaining fluid to suspend me in the southern summer. I’m not sure why this happened; some kind of protection from the constant change and motion I’ve experienced perhaps.

Staying for four months was supposed to slow things down, and it has to some extent. For us, at least. There was a consistent push-pull of competing demands. Sharing ourselves, slices of time however short, resulting in snippets of socialising, like speed dating. 

At times I felt exhausted. 

Traversing across Australia as we did—by plane, train, and car—I felt the cry of a landscape carved into pieces. Fences stretch for metres or miles indicating ownership. The marked differences between how people tend these spaces can be enormous. Neat, green, trimmed and mowed. Orderly. Clean. Chaotic, messy, brown and overgrown. Rubbish-filled. Ramshackle. 

Finishing Right Story, Wrong Story by Tyson Yunkaporta reinforced what I felt keenly— the yearning for a landscape to be treated as a whole. To see the patterns in the flow of water and rock, how vegetation grows over a landscape, fauna following. Instead I notice the cause and effect as we dig into a continent, taking its minerals and precious metals to make an unending stream of useful and useless stuff. 

This perspective is particularly evident when flying to New South Wales and Queensland where housing estates are being hastily built by carving out huge tracts of bushland, ripping out all vegetation to build little hot-boxes made of ticky-tacky, not a tree in sight. 

By plane you can see giant holes being dug, carving up a landscape, wealth (for some) hidden by strips of trees and giant mounds of dirt and rock from any car passenger driving by. It’s not right. It’s the wrong story, exploiting the land for personal gain. Only a few seem to question the wisdom of changing the landscape so much. Those Greenies. How dare they put the environment before jobs, housing, growth?

I read about housing developments so badly planned the outside temperatures around the houses were so extreme (with no shade trees) that no one could be outside. Inside, air conditioning on, is the only way to survive, pumping out more warm air into cramped yards with no airflow and no chance of planting shade-giving trees and green spaces.

What are we doing?

Building without a thought for the present or future it seems.

At these times I turn to online spaces like Positive News to give me perspective that many wonderful things are happening in the world to help save Earth. Solace to my frayed nerves as the world seems to choke with the excess we produce. It’s not everyone that’s building without a care or consuming more and more—but how do we deal with it all?

I don’t have answers, but the questions are important. Hope is important. Hope that sustainable design of all things flows to where it’s needed most.

Flying Over the Åland Islands | Photo by Lisa Bolin

Now that I’ve landed home, I feel more grounded. My own bed, my own space. Only going out to get fresh air and exercise with minimal social contact. Reconnecting with the landscape and adjusting to the swift change in seasons. The forest greeted me as we flew over the islands I now call home. Human’s mark a little less obvious here, but evident nonetheless.

My writing stalled whilst I was away. It feels as if everything stalled, except the meeting with loved ones and the soaking in of the summer, sun, sand, and sea. I have great respect for those (digital) nomads who maintain work and travel at the same time—I need tips if I’m to embark on making this experiment regular. How do I maintain the work flow when I’m constantly in motion? How do I maintain my energy levels?

Perhaps I didn’t stall at all? Perhaps I needed to experience Australia and the changes that have occurred since I moved away and slowing my own output was a result of the processing of it all. We are human beings after all, not human-doings. Being in the land of my birth, being with family and friends, being in places and spaces, both new and familiar, has been important as I move into a new decade and decide what is important and deserves my focus.

Let’s see what happens in the next few months.

So, thank you, dear reader, for your patience. Perhaps you didn’t even notice my absence. Life can be like that—you don’t know something is missing until it reappears. Thank you for reading, reflecting, ruminating with me. I appreciate it.

Until next time.

Stay Well,

Lisa x

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Other Things

I wrote a small book last year—an e-book—with five ways to live a more present life. It’s free to download.

I watched Nyad recently, and amazing story of a woman who I had never heard of. Somehow, the news of a 64 year old woman swimming from Cuba to the USA slipped past me ten years ago when Diana Nyad completed this amazing swim. I’m glad Annette Benning and Jodie Foster brought this story out to the world again. We need stories of amazing women doing fearless and wonderful things at any age.