Geowalkabout

He messaged late,

years folded into one line—

I’ll buy you a drink.

And I went,

not knowing what would rise

from the dust of old silence.

We stayed out too long,

laughing like we hadn’t bled,

like grief hadn’t carved

its initials into our ribs.

We wore the night like denim,

soft from memory,

frayed at the edges.

Talk turned to my father—

the shed,

the soldering iron,

his voice steady:

Just burn it off.

A skin tag,

a small rebellion of flesh,

no match for his resolve.

He was my quiet hero,

the kind who trusted

pain to pass

and family to show up.

We spoke of our kids,

the years he missed,

the words I couldn’t find

when I needed them most.

It wasn’t blame,

just truth laid bare

like tools on a workbench.

It felt like trying on old boots—

not lovers,

just old friends

who once knew the shape

of each other’s stride.

And when the night exhaled,

I felt it:

the weight lift.

Not because it disappeared,

but because I stopped

carrying it alone.

Shit happens.

And sometimes,

so does grace.

The slammed door echoed through my office like a thunderclap.

It wasn’t just noise—it was grief, hunger, and something no one had words for.

Today, the classroom felt less like a learning space and more like a storm shelter.

The students arrived agitated, dysregulated, and empty—not just emotionally, but physically. Some hadn’t eaten. One left in anger. Another was tricked into giving his number to a girl who used it to post cruel things in his name. One student is on a two-week fruit diet, but I suspect it’s not a choice—it’s a quiet signal of scarcity.

👁️ What I Saw Beneath the Surface

I saw more than behavior.

I saw unmet needs, social harm, and silent suffering.

• Hunger masked as defiance

• Shame disguised as bravado

• Emotional chaos spilling into every corner of the room

I held it all.

Not with control, but with presence.

Not with solutions, but with sacred noticing.

🛡️ The Weight I Carried

This is the part of teaching no one prepares you for:

The emotional triage.

The quiet absorbing.

The invisible labor of holding space for pain that doesn’t fit into lesson plans.

And tonight, I feel it in my bones.

🌿 My Ritual of Release

So I crafted a small ritual to let the weight soften:

🏊‍♀️ A slow swim beneath the afternoon sky—letting the water hold what I can’t

🛁 A hot spa to melt the tension from my shoulders, breath by breath

🍵 A cup of tea, held slowly—to remind myself that nourishment can be gentle

🕯️ A whispered affirmation: “I see what others overlook. I hold what others drop.”

And this poem, for the part of me that stayed soft in the storm:

The Teacher’s Cloak

by Kristy

I wore no armor,

only breath and noticing.

A cloak stitched from

quiet suspicion—

that fruit diets hide hunger,

that slammed doors echo

unspoken grief.

I held the room

like a shoreline holds waves—

not to stop them,

but to witness their shape.

Tonight, I unfasten the cloak.

Let it rest beside the spa.

Let the steam rise

like a prayer

for every child

who came hungry

and left unseen.

I swim it out—

the ache, the anger, the helplessness.

Let the water take it,

let the heat soften it,

until I remember:

I am not the storm.

I am the witness.

💬 A Gentle Invitation

If you’ve ever held space for someone else’s chaos,

what helped you release it afterward?

What rituals do you return to

when the emotional weather turns wild?

May we all have cloaks stitched from noticing.

May we know when to unfasten them.

Today I was witness to my son’s grief. He bore deep empathy, not just for the pain of ducklings that were run over but for the mother’s confusion and loss-such a testament to the beautiful man he is growing to be and the kind of heart he carries with him. 

This was not just a tragedy, it was a ceremony of feeling. My son didn’t turn away, he felt fully and fiercely today. I met him in his grief without dismissal, acknowledging his feelings and giving space for sacred ritual. We climbed the hill to the top of the waterfall today and asked Boodjar to  care for the ducklings in a sacred act of relational healing. It gave shape to the grief and a place for it to go. Ancestral wisdom in motion. 

Even though the grief lingered, the land held us both. The hills, the water, the quiet presence of boodjar—they offered a soft place to rest the ache. That moment of letting go, even just a little, was a kind of release. Not forgetting, but integrating. My son is extraordinary in reflecting and embracing learning. The waterfall was healing, if just a little. 

“Inside the storm: where neurons misfire and silence becomes sacred. A migraine isn’t just pain—it’s the body’s cry for stillness, for dim light, for deep listening.”

There are days when my body speaks in pulses and shadows.

Migraine isn’t just a headache, it’s a full-body shutdown.

A neurological storm that floods my senses, dims my vision, and demands surrender.

Even with Emgality and Relpax working quietly inside me, there are moments when I can’t see, can’t think, can’t function at full capacity.

It’s not just the pain.

It’s the disorientation.

The way light becomes a blade.

The way sound becomes a scream.

The way my body insists: stop everything.

At fifty, I’m still waiting for the shift they say might come with menopause.

Still navigating the in-between where hormones, hope, and healing dance in uncertainty.

🌿 Migraine as Messenger

I’ve come to see migraine not only as a condition, but as a messenger.

It forces me to pause. To listen. To honor my limits.

It teaches me to create rituals of care—dark rooms, cool cloths, silence, tea, breath.

It reminds me that healing isn’t always active.

Sometimes it’s about not doing.

Not pushing. Not performing.

Just being.

👩‍👦 Chasing Waterfalls, Seeking Relief

This weekend, I’ll take my son and we’ll go chasing waterfalls.

We’ll walk into the hush of bushland, let the sound of rushing water drown out the ache.

We’ll let nature hold us—just for a while.

Because even in pain, there is beauty.

Even in fog, there is movement.

Even in struggle, there is love.

💬 Your Turn: What Does Your Body Ask For?

If you live with migraine—or any invisible storm—what rituals help you return to yourself?

Do you find refuge in water, in silence, in movement, in medicine, in prayer?

I’d love to hear your stories.

Not just the pain, but the ways you’ve learned to listen.

To honor your body’s wisdom.

To find beauty in the pause.

Drop a comment, share a ritual, or simply let this post be a mirror.

You’re not alone in the fog.

And your healing matters.

I do not wait in silence

I listen with a heart uncurled,

soft as seafoam, strong as stone

that’s weathered every tide.

I reach, not to be claimed,

but to honor the truth I carry

a flame that flickers gently,

never needing another’s wind to burn.

I swim through disorientation,

tea steam rising like breath prayers,

each ritual a tether to myself

a sacred act of remembering.

I am not undone by silence.

I am not erased by delay.

I am the echo of my own care,

the answer I gave myself first.

I wonder about solitude,

not as absence, but as armor—

imagining the ache behind the quiet,

the longing tucked beneath the still.

I transform pain into poetry,

uncertainty into unsent grace

blog posts like offerings,

each word a reclamation.

I walk with Noongar language

in my marrow, sacred boodja (earth) in my step

my creativity a ceremony,

my boundaries a blessing.

I long, yes

for shared swims, for laughter,

for someone who sees the shimmer

beneath my strength.

But I do not wait in silence.

I wait in fullness.

I wait in motion.

I wait as myself.

I thought it was enough not to drink or use drugs to solve problems like my family. I waited with abated breath for the time that the dreaded darkness would come and pull me into that life. It never came, but what I was left with was emptiness, not knowing how to love myself, not knowing what to do with ‘feelings’ and ‘thoughts’. I waited to learn a new way, another way. And then my world was shattered into shards of glass that continue to stab at me, when I watched my father die in pain. What comes of me? A promise he forced me to make, to get fit and live a healthy life and a grief so consuming that I wanted to be sucked into the boodjar (earth) where my ancestors lay. I went to grief counselling at a place for families of veterans because it was the only place I still felt a connection to him. He loved the ADF and it was his life. Through this immense loss I am learning to keep my promise to him and live a life worth living. To love myself so that I can trust others and let people in.

I didn’t mean to be alone this long.
It just… happened.
One year folded into the next,
and the quiet became familiar,
like an old coat I stopped noticing I was wearing.

I told myself I was fine.
That solitude was strength.
That I didn’t need the mess of love,
the ache of wanting,
the risk of being seen.

But the truth?
I was afraid.
Afraid of being known and then left.
Afraid of giving my heart to someone
who wouldn’t know how to hold it.

So I built a life that asked nothing of anyone.
No explanations.
No vulnerability.
Just the safety of routine,
and the silence of not trying.

Then you came.
And something shifted.
Your voice felt like warmth I’d forgotten.
Your presence stirred a hunger I’d buried.

I wanted to lean in.
To say yes.
To let you in.

But the walls I built weren’t just metaphor.
They’re muscle memory.
And I didn’t know how to dismantle them fast enough
to meet you where you stood—
open, brave, waiting.

So I pulled back.
Not because I didn’t feel it.
But because I did.
And it terrified me.

I don’t know how to love without losing myself.
I don’t know how to be held without flinching.
But I think about you.
More than I admit.
And I wonder if you’d still be there
if I ever found the courage to try.

Tonight, the sky broke open.

Not with invitation, but with a roar.
A wild percussion against the longing in my chest.
I had planned to swim
to let the water hold me the way it always does,
cool and clear,
a place where my thoughts dissolve
and my breath becomes rhythm.

But Perth had other plans.
A thunderstorm rolled in,
winds howling through the trees,
rain tracing memory across the windows.
Each drop felt like a promise I almost believed
a message from someone who said they’d be there
and then wasn’t.

So I pivoted.
No swim tonight.
No surrender to the hush of water.
But I crafted my own tide.

I drew a bath slowly,
steam rising like breath
from a body learning to stay present.
I brewed ginger tea
its warmth a quiet echo
of the laps I didn’t take.

Music hummed low in the background,
mirroring the rhythm of my stroke
steady, certain,
even when the world forgets.

I lay back, eyes closed,
and imagined the water holding me
like truth.

Outside, the storm raged.
Inside, I chose peace over chasing.

To work in a place where the tree canopy stretches wide like an emerald cathedral roof, filtering golden morning light into dappled mosaics across the sacred Boodjar. Not mere soil, but ancient ground, rich with memory, spirit, and quiet ancestral breath. Each leaf sways with purpose, whispering secrets of six seasons and serenity. Beneath this leafy gateway, a quiet symphony plays, the rustle of branches, the laughter of wind threading through eucalyptus limbs, and the gentle percussion of tiny feet skipping across timeless land.

Koolbardies flit like brushstrokes on a living canvas, feathers catching light like stained glass in motion. Their warble rings not just with song, but with story, echoing through generations with soul and grace. Chuckaluck dance between branches, quick and curious, their flight a choreography of joy and ancient rhythm.

And then , this school. Cradled by Country, its presence gentle yet powerful. Walls breathe knowledge and belonging. Classrooms pulse with spirit and potential. Here, windows invite the outside in, the scent of rain on bark, the hush of dusk falling softly, the promise that learning here is rooted, reaching, alive.

What a beautiful place to be.