Far North Queensland is notorious for its monsoon season. We are both blessed and cursed when the wet season hits. With dams and catchments receiving much needed water, whilst flooding and cyclones are a deadly and all too common occurrence during this season. We are faced with category 3,4 and 5 cyclones at least every year, whether they hit is a different story; yet they hover reminding us of our mortality and fragility as a species.
As a writer I equate the emotional trauma inflicted on my characters as sticking them in the path of a cyclone and expecting them to fend for themselves. Whether they make it out the other end is another story that only they can determine. After all a writer is more often than not a tool their characters utilise to be heard and seen.
As so many Far North Queenslander's will tell you, or even Darwinians and Western Australian dwellers, we are a resilient lot. We do what needs doing, there's no whinging maybe a few tears, but no whinging. We band together and begin the long road to recovery after the storm has died.
On a personal level life's trials can often have the same effect as extreme whether events leaving us tired, unbalanced and worn out, much like a cyclone does after it's hit. There's the build up where you can feel the pressure in the air, your ears are popping, the headache train is fast approaching; yet you are running around like a stark raving lunatic trying to prep your house and garden for unknown damage. Then just as suddenly it's here. BAM! Wind howls through any crevice it can find, trees loose their precious grip on the earth launching into the nearest structure in their path. Families hide, hunkering down in any room that doesn't contain a wall full of windows.
The eye passes over, silence of the grave rolls over the land where not even the birds and and insects dare to make a sound or emerge. Next you're back in the thick of it praying for the tail to hurry up and pass. Emerging after the storm has passed to look upon the devastation is no less tiring than the event itself.
Now this is where an individual and a character arrive at a crucial three way intersection in their lives both metaphorically and physically. On one side you have your same old life, where you know nothing else but drama. On the other is an undiscovered path where yes you will experience various ups and downs, yet you will choose to look for the positives and life lessons to be experienced out of those ups and downs. The choice is yours. You are the only one who can determine what is right for you.
Renewal, beauty, strength and new friendships can emerge from even the worst of Cyclones or extreme weather events, it is whether you or the character choose to look for these and seize them.
Welcome to the 2018. Here's to surviving the ups and downs; to looking for the positives and life experiences that are to come.
Carpe Diem.