Originally published on Substack, where we share this free fortnightly-ish newsletter straight to your inbox.
In life, you have to pave, and regularly beat, that one failsafe path home – back home to who you are at your truest and strongest and to the way you want to live your life.
For me, and for a long time, this has been backpacking in the mountains. There’s sometimes resistance at the idea – what will the weather be like, my knees are sore, that’s a lot of driving for two days and so on – but there’s never regret at the summit.
At the trailhead, I’m always hit with memories of past hikes as well as the anticipation of what’s to come. All at once, I feel content with the expanses I’ve explored yet also impatient for more. I often think that it’s at these edges of juxtaposition that you uncover the answers – to whatever questions you’ve been asking.
I find backpacking simultaneously cathartic and creative. On a hike in Barrington Tops National Park, I distinctly remember thinking how the crunch of my footsteps on the earth seemed to mimic the beats of my heart. With each step, I imagine my thoughts slowing and emotions settling, while my lungs and muscles work overtime.
And when I unzip the dew-covered tent fly that next morning to a sea of clouds, over which the sun will soon swim up, all my senses are ignited. I can put words to ideas and give shape to a feeling or a moment with a photo, thereby linking the abstract to the real.
And so this weekend past, my partner and I loaded up our North Face backpacks with all the gear and snack elements for a grounding yet exhilarating time out in the elements. (Here’s a backpacking hack for you: baby food pouches are lightweight, nutritious and super palatable!).
Here are some thoughts from the trail, as written in my journal while sitting on the edge of a rock outcrop, overlooking vast rock fields at the base of Mount Duncan, faces (both ours and the mountains) painted gold by the just-risen sun, with the smell of Aeropress coffee wafting around.
“It feels phenomenal to be here. As soon as we rolled into Jindy, I felt relaxed, excited and so curious and joyful. Hitting 1900m, it was the alpine playground I know and love of heathland, herb and boulder fields, mammoth rocks, snow gums and petrified gums. It all has to hold some some kind of ancient, otherworldly power…I feel that life is for real experiences like this and nothing is more real than nature. People and relationships are significant – it goes without saying – but without nature, they exist amongst nothing. Landscapes like this have been here well before us. We’ve come from it, and are here as something so small and temporary, and one day, we’ll go back to it.”
“I’ve always loved the outdoors as a levelling between people. We’re sitting side by side and sharing the same views, after having walked the same path and often eating the exact same food and yet in our heads and hearts, there’s no doubt there are different goings-on. I guess this is always the case but being in a big, beautiful place like this calls it to mind for me.”
And once back home, I wrote this:
“I am reminded of who I am and what I stand for. I feel I’m a strong person, steadfast in my values and passions, and yet even I get wrapped up in a rhythm I don’t want to dance to. I stand for courage and creativity and out here, after here, is when I embody and exhibit them most and best. Coming back down, I take it onwards into my daily life as the courage to take action and the creativity in thoughts, words and photos. I’m inspired to take risks in business and lifestyle, I’m humbled to give every day and person my presence and I’ve stoked the fire in me to get after it all, over and over…until I’m inevitably left with embers floating, moving to a tune I don’t recognise, at which point, it’s time to be reminded again.”
I hope your weekend was equal parts restful and invigorating (again, at that edge of juxtapositions).
Words I highlighted this week
4 lines from Mary Oliver’s ‘Of Power and Time’ in ‘Upstream’ that provoked some serious thought
p26. In creative work – creative work of all kinds – those who are the world’s working artists are not trying to help the world go around, but forward. Which is something altogether different from the ordinary. Such work does not refute the ordinary. It is, simply, something else.
p28. Its concern is the edge, and the making of a form out of the formlessness that is beyond the edge.
(‘it’ refers to ‘the extraordinary’)
p29. There is a notion that creative people are absentminded, reckless, heedless of social customs and obligations. It is, hopefully, true.
(I’ve always felt repelled by ‘social customs and obligations’ and am usually compelled to do the opposite of what is expected of me.)
p30. The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt the own creation power restive and uprising, and gave to it eight power nor time.
What I recently (professionally) wrote
I’m very bullish on email marketing right now.
I think that consumer behaviour is going to stay geared towards online, while still craving real connection. Our inboxes cater to both – they’re digital tools at our disposal and the communications that go to and from them are (in my opinion and expertise) even more tailored and personal than social media.
I’ve been managing Contentious Character’s social media and writing their email copy since August 2020. They’re a winery literally 7 minutes from our house that make bold, characterful wines and are owned and managed by genuine, hardworking and lovely people.
Recently, I revamped the copy for their email welcome sequence, which is the series of emails you receive when signing up to their newsletter. Disclaimer: I don’t do the sending or reporting. They work with a digital agency for that. I purely write the words.
This sequence now involves 4 emails that welcome a new subscriber, extend an intro offer, deepen the brand story and share value-adding content (how to match wines with food, ICYW).
You can read the actual copy from this sequence on the Fiction blog. Let it educate and inspire you to write your own.
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