A baby Galah looking out into the big world................
Warning............This is a bit of a long and rambly post.....me looking back over the year and really just putting words to a whole lot of thoughts mostly for my own purposes.............you can skip straight to my favourite 2015 images at the bottom!!
2015
It has been a while since I updated my journal, the year is almost over and it seems a good time to look back to that which is now past. What has changed, what have I learned and what have I done over the past year. To understand 2015 a bit of context from 2014 is required...............
The Cancer Bomb of 2014
In January 2014 Terry was diagnosed with advanced Oesophageal Cancer and given very little chance of surviving. It was unexpected, a complete shock and a long story..........in a nutshell, the cancer was very advanced and the only treatment option was an Oesophagectomy which involved the removal of the entire Oesophagus and top part of the stomach. It is a huge operation with a significant mortality rate and very high chance of life affecting side effects. Doctors will only do this operation if they are sure the cancer hasn't spread elsewhere. Initially the Oncologist was unsure whether Terry would be a candidate for surgery, but further testing indicated the cancer was still contained within the Oesophagus and a few surrounding lymph nodes. The only option was to start chemotherapy and hope it would shrink the cancer back to a point where surgery was an option. We had a trip planned to KL so decided to go anyway and start treatment when we got back. On the trip, another completely unexpected thing happened, Terry asked me to marry him and we set a wedding date for April 17th. Chemo made Terry feel absolutely awful but, he endured it well and was incredibly lucky. It worked, the tumour shrunk back significantly and the Doctors were willing to perform the surgery. The date for the operation was set for 24th June. The week before our wedding Terry had a major haemorrhage. Chemo had aggravated a stomach ulcer and caused a heavy bleed. He lost a lot of blood and was released from hospital the night before our wedding. We had a tiny simple weekday wedding at Araluen Botanical Gardens near our home...a Buddhist ceremony with Soraya and our closest friends and family.
Our simple Buddhist ceromony.
In the gardens at Araluen.
Soraya my beautiful bridesmaid.
The surgery went ahead in June......anxious, difficult, horrible times but Terry recovered extremely well....and again was incredibly lucky to have no complications or serious long term effects. Once he recovered from the operation, he started a course of post operative chemotherapy to catch any cancer that may have been left. This course of chemo was much harder because he was still weak from the operation, but he got through it and finished in late November, just before Xmas last year. So now, a year has passed!
Terry a few days after his Oesophagectomy in June 2014.
The Fallout......Bombs make a mess!!
It is probably different for everyone but this is how I think of it. Cancer treatment is all consuming. At diagnosis the focus of life shifts to cancer and how to treat it. Priorities are re-arranged and life adjusted to fit around the treatment regime and its side effects. There is an enormous amount to learn very quickly, about the cancer, the treatments, the tests, the drugs, the options, the side effects, about handling hospitals and specialists and treatment schedules. There is the practical side, getting to appointments, having treatment and managing the side effects. There is an emotional side as the mind processes what is happening and what it means. Dramatic shifts in priorities and thought structures. Dramatic changes in daily life, roles and routines. For the patient a focus on getting through the treatment, getting through each day feeling horrible, facing the possibility of death, facing the possibility of being changed forever, healing from surgery and processing the intense physical, spiritual and emotional changes cancer brings. For the partner a focus on keeping it together, managing fears and anxieties about the future, facing the possibility your partner may die, learning all you can about the disease, helping with the practical stuff and adjusting to the shifts in life that come with a major illness. For both, re-framing everything, working out priorities, coping with uncertainty, lack of control, change, and learning how to accept what is and function on a daily basis.
I photographed this pair of Ravens at Bibra Lake.......I normally don't photography Ravens but there was nothing else around........they were sitting together and there was a sense of closeness between them.......I love the shimmer in their dark feathers....their intense eyes, and their togetherness.............dark friends or partners!!
Fighting the same beast but from a different angle and all the time trying to make sense of what is happening within a wider spiritual context or belief system. Exhausting and at times very lonely, sad, and frightening. Life contracts into a kind of survival mode. There isn't a lot of spare energy or time for superfluous stuff. Superficial conversation and activity stops. Relationships with friends and family move into a kind of holding pattern. It is difficult to to explain what is happening to others and trying has an emotional cost. Only those that have been through something similar really understand, and giving updates and talking about it raises difficult emotions and makes the gap between yourself and others seem wider and deeper. Cancer takes the patient and family to the coalface of life......something we are almost always protected from in our wealthy, western developed country.
A Swamp Hen photographed at Booragoon Lake. When I took this image my settings were wrong and it was totally underexposed.....almost black....I increased the exposure of the raw file in Lightroom, and this is what emerged......it is one of my favourite images, makes me think of light emerging from darkness...............
Yet, it isn't all bad..........as I have found in life there is always a flip side. Darkness is balanced by light, they can't exist without each other. So for me many good things came from this. Spiritual strength and belief in my own tenacity, a strong appreciation of my husband's physical and mental strength, forgiveness of past wrongs and difficulties between us and deeper love, a clearer picture of how to live, new coping mechanisms, a broader mind and understanding of life, an acute awareness of the beauty that surrounds us, of the subtleties in light, colour texture and sound, new and creative ways to express myself with photography and writing, gratitude for life and health, gratitude for my daughter, my husband, my parents, my family, my friends and my dog and, somehow underlying all of this........... a powerful and basic trust in life and death and the beautiful, impermanent, interactive nature of it all. A belief that no matter what comes it will be OK and is meant to be.
A reflection in Lake Towerninning on a perfectly still morning........one of the most beautiful things I have every seen. When I loaded the image on the computer I could see an eye in the middle...........I had sensed something profound that morning and this image somehow captured what I felt............
The Great Clean-up of 2015
On the back of all that 2015 began. There was a strong, almost manic determination to get out and do stuff. It started with a trip in January to the South West with our friends Andrew, Jess and little Jarrah. We took the canoe and the dog and went camping along the coast. Then there were trips to Kalli, my childhood cattle station home in the Murchison.
The grid as you drive into Kalli Station Homestead. My Uncle Arthur painted the 'Kalli' name on the grid when I was a kid and it is still there today. I love driving into Kalli......always feels like I am coming home!!
We helped out with the annual cattle muster and stayed with Jezz (the dog) in our tiny tin shack with no electricity or phone. It is an arid beautiful place with huge granite outcrops, breakaways and creeks all teeming with life, especially birds. It is and always will be my home. The country at Kalli heals the soul in a subtle enduring way. Surrounded by nature and away from all the superficial aspects of modern life it takes you back to basics, back to what is real and what matters. When we are there, I cook on an open fire and each night we sit outside, watch the stars and listen to the bats hunting.
Our cottage on Kalli Station.................one of the out building at the homestead.
The next holiday was a 4WD trip along the Holland track with some friends. We had a fantastic time driving, camping and exploring.
Lots of rain on the Holland Track.
The end of the trip.....four vehicles all made it....everyone happy!!
There were a few other little camping trips to the North, and I went to Melbourne to visit my sister and Killian for a few days. Melbourne was wonderful. I hadn't seen Melainie and Killian since my wedding in April 2014 and we spent the time shopping, eating and exploring. I also got the opportunity to visit the Werribee Wetlands and photograph a Spotted Harrier, Powerful Owl and Brolgas.
My nephew Killian looking very dapper in Melbourne!!
In the time between trips, we started catching up at home. Apart from the very basics we had been able to do very little in 2014 and our house and garden ended up in a state of complete disarray. It has taken time and a consistent effort but things are getting sorted out and fixed up. Order is emerging from the chaos and it feels good!! Slowly, the emotional toll and intensity of the previous year has washed out and things now seem a lot more normal for both of us. It is much easier to be relaxed and happy and have fun than it was a year ago. Terry was determined to get better and against all odds he has done it!! Over the course of the year he has got stronger and stronger. He has had very few long term effects from his treatment, and is now back into the full swing of life, fixing things, building things and making things. Despite several expert predictions to the contrary, his latest set of scans were clear and he is feeling good. With a more acute appreciation that nothing is forever, we have plans to restructure out lives in 2016 so I am working less, meaning more time together for travelling and fun stuff. 2015 has been a clean up year, literally and figuratively.........a year of re-building, strengthening, organising, clearing the decks, finishing jobs, settling back into normality and planning for the future. Right now we are getting ready for Xmas and spending lots of time playing with Jezz's beautiful puppies!!
Cricket the Puppy in my kitchen scales.......she weighed 2kg.
Terry with 'Penny' puppy....a sweet little girl!!
Photography - A Precious Link to Reality
My love affair with photography and writing has continued and intensified. As with most things I do, it borders on being obsessive!! I have found many good birding spots on lakes, the Swan and Canning Rivers and our coastline that I now visit regularly. I love checking each spot and seeing what is there and what has changed. Checking on different places in the bush is something I did as a young girl and it is interesting how the same thing has now become an integral part of my adult life. I tend to get up early to catch the beautiful dawn light and often spend a few hours out in the bush by myself with the camera before work. It is something that always calms my mind and puts things in perspective. When I am out in the bush things make sense and creativity and inspiration flow naturally. Watching wild creatures and spending time in nature is how I connect to reality, the basic subtle reality that underpins everything. Maintaining that connection has become an absolute priority for me, and it is something I will continue to protect, nurture and grow. Photography makes me happy and I love being able to share the images I take and show others some of what I see when I am out in the bush.
Photographing the scenery on a granite outcrop on the Holland Track,
Jezz and me out taking photos........waiting for sunset.
In the second half of 2015 I put a lot of work into building some structure around my photography obsession. I re-designed my website to make it more functional and added e-commerce capability and an online shop to sell prints and calendars. I selected my best images, processed them, test printed them where necessary and added them to the shop. It was a huge learning curve but now the structure is in place and can be easily added to or adjusted as time goes on. I have a huge update to my recent image galleries happening in a few weeks time and intend to get back to writing my journal on photography and anything else that takes my fancy on a more regular basis in 2016. I am also looking at the possibility of running birding photography workshops and possibly trips to the Murchison later in the year so there are interesting times ahead!!. During the year I have photographed so many different birds..........I love their grace and elegance, the beautiful colours, the expressions, the intelligent eyes and the sense of wild wisdom they bring to the world. I have been looking back through my images and have chosen my favourites for this journal article. I have an enormous sense of gratitude to the creatures I see and photograph so this is a tribute to them, the wise beings that abide in nature and have taught me so much.
Image taken by Shelley Pearson.....a brilliant bird photographer watching my antics from the road.
My Favourite Images From 2015
