Like a dog chasing cars

I’m sat in my living room writing my Christmas cards. What a mundane activity this is, I think. Easily distracted, I look down at my feet. I notice I’m wearing flip flops. I quickly become aware of my general attire – shorts, t-shirt – and ponder the surrealism of this moment. Everything really is a bit upside down here.

The house is quiet. There’s a slight ringing in my ears because of it. Nearly two years of travelling and being constantly surrounded by people has left some lingering background noise in my head. I’ve gone from a three-bedroomed backpacker flat sharing with eight very sociable people to a four bedroom house with three people who have their own lives and get on with them with very few requirements from me.

I savour the silence. It’s nice.

I’m at work in the break area. There are stylish chairs and tables, old magazines and floor to ceiling windows that stare out across southern Melbourne. There’s never anyone around so I like to go right up to the window and test my vertigo. I stand with the end of my shoes touching the glass and press the top of my head against the window. That way I can look down at the city and pretend like I’m floating above it.

I like this city. Sure, under all those grey roofs I can see there are people stressing about their workloads. But at least when they go outside the sun will shine down on them, there won’t be crowds of people jostling them about, and they can get home via a comparatively less crowded public transport system.

I think of my own work. It’s mindless but occupying. It leaves lots of space in my head; space that is slowly being filled by other things: ideas, stories, characters, bits of my imagination and my real life that have melded together to form interesting shapes and words.

Slowly in the past few weeks these shapes and words and ideas have been shuffling forward from the darker recesses of my brain. They look a little shamefaced, not very confident in themselves, but I can feel them growing and their potential shines out at me.

Before Christmas I felt lost, unfocused. What on earth am I going to do next? Why have I still not found that answer I’ve been looking for? I look back at the last two years and see myself like a dog chasing cars. I’ve travelled the world with more enthusiasm than I’ve done anything before and yet I haven’t really achieved anything.

My friend Julia, suffering from her own lack of inspiration, suggested we spend Christmas doing something to lift our spirits and renew our confidence in our talents. We decided to write a sitcom. She’s a stand-up comedian. I’m a writer who can occasionally be funny. Our first attempts felt quite good as we drew out the story arc and shaped the characters. We decided to write about what we know and are telling the tale of five British backpackers who don’t really like each other but are thrown together by their mutual love of Australia. It’s about Britishness. It’s also about Australia through British eyes. And it’s mostly about why those eyes usually gaze so lovingly upon this country.

People are interested in our sitcom idea and are egging us on. Maybe it’ll go somewhere, maybe it won’t, but it’s got the creative juices flowing. It has given purpose to my presence here, and purpose to the past year.

And it’s helped me realise that maybe, just maybe, this is what I’ve been looking for on my travels: a state of quiet that will allow me to create. Enough space in my head for my ideas to take shape and flourish. Maybe this quiet house is what I really wanted, this undemanding work what I really needed, and enough time passed that the distractive (destructive?) longing for past loves no longer dominates my thoughts.

And new relationships help. I've found a Huck Finn to my Tom Sawyer. I feel the gentle pressure of his fingers on my chin as he twists my head towards him. He smiles at me with his wide green eyes. It fills me with reason again.