Quiet Unfiltered Notes: From the Fire

It has been six weeks since my pinky arthrodesis. Six weeks.   And somehow it feels like forever since I last sat down to write. That probably sounds ridiculous considering how much writing has occupied my life this year.   I've written more than I ever imagined I would.   I've spent countless hours thinking about books, manuscripts, publishing, faith , history and all the strange things that happen inside my head when the world finally becomes quiet. Yet sitting here today feels unfamiliar. I have missed this.   I have missed opening a blank page without knowing exactly where the words are going.   I have missed the freedom of writing something that doesn't need to become a book, doesn't need to be formatted, doesn't need a cover, doesn't need another technical decision.   Something that can simply exist because I needed to write it. To be truthful, the past six weeks have been a whirlwind.   My body has been recover...

Yesterday a song came through my Spotify that I was not prepared for. Concrete Blonde . Joey . I have heard that song more times than I could count. It isn't new to me. It isn't some song I discovered yesterday and suddenly decided was profound. It has history with me. Too much history, probably. It belongs to rooms I don't live in anymore. Versions of myself I sometimes struggle to recognise. People I loved badly. People who loved me when I was difficult to love. Alcohol. Regret. Long nights. Messy nights. Relationships I damaged. Things I should have said. Things I absolutely should not have said. Doors closing. Phones ringing. Phones not ringing. The strange loneliness that comes when you know you have contributed to your own heartbreak and there is nobody convenient to blame. And yesterday it just appeared. I wasn't searching for it. I wasn't trying to have some profound moment. Spotify simply did what Spotify does. The song started playing. And within minutes I...

It has been five days since my finger surgery. Five days. There is something strange about counting recovery in days. Before surgery, everything was measured by the date. September 11. The appointment. The operation. The thing coming toward me. Now I am on the other side of it, and time is measured differently. Five days since surgery. Five days of healing. Five days of adjusting. Five days of looking at my hand and knowing that something about it has permanently changed. And somewhere in the middle of all of this, while my body is slowly doing what bodies somehow know how to do, I purchased a book. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King . I haven't read it yet. Not one chapter. I haven't highlighted a sentence or underlined a paragraph. I haven't formed an opinion about King's philosophy of writing. I don't know which parts I will agree with, which parts will challenge me, or which parts might irritate me. The book is simply waiting for me. And strangely...

Tonight I sit here after my pinky orthopaedic surgery , and the pain is in full effect. There is no poetic way of saying that. It hurts. The kind of pain that makes you very aware of the part of your body you normally never think about. Every movement reminds me that something significant has happened inside my hand. Every time I instinctively try to use it, I am reminded that I cannot quite use it the way I did before. Even writing this blog entry is difficult due to my limitations. And yet, sitting here tonight, there is something else underneath the pain. Gratitude. Yesterday was a big day for me. I was blessed to have Professor Randy Bindra at the Mater Hospital looking after me. From the moment I went through the process of having surgery to the care I received throughout the day, I felt like I was in good hands. There is something reassuring about knowing that the person operating on you understands exactly what they are doing. So tonight I am sitting here with a sore hand, a t...