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While I stay by my mother, I glean only the edges of the news; already the horror of the fires has been at full stretch. In the quiet room where my mother lies, I think of people trying to sleep in unfamiliar environments, refugees from the fires.
It’s a stressful and anxious time for many people. Yet, the expression to ‘look for the helpers’ whenever a crisis occurs is an apt one in this situation. People are looking for social connectivity and ways to express kindness to others in practising social distancing under direction of medical experts.
I still mainly look back. The bushfire legacy lives on. It acts as a benchmark for assessing tragedy and hope. I cannot get the searing images out of my head of red, angry skies, of flames raging frighteningly, embers flying, and firefighters miraculously persevering against the odds.
The coronavirus transfixed everyone; I couldn’t ride a lift or have New Year dinner or go hiking without hearing a conversation about the coronavirus. The demon of the past had reared its head again.
The media serve an important role in keeping people informed in times of disaster and the social media campaigns to spend with businesses in fire-affected communities are having a helpful impact. But the nature, extent and motivation of media coverage of disasters such as the bushfires this summer needs to be considered.
With blazes nearby, TV news bars well on fire, we human animals are panicked, feel the shudder of rotors above our roofs. Very soon thirsty helitankers will thunder down to drink from our neighbourhood lake. May we remember tomorrow, nothing will be more worried than pelicans in broken reeds, the night heron in its naked tree.
My dog I've had for 14 years dies, and I decide to spend two days in bed. I look online and see that more than a billion Australian animals have died in the fires. Guilt spirals on top of guilt. How gauche, to feel this private grief, when there is such public grief already.
As the sea withdrew, the waves left curling black lines that crossed one another. The beach became a map in which territories were separated from one another. That image reflected the fires and the ways in which they were perceived. They were more than localised events. They affected relationships that spread far beyond the fire.
There are so many details about these unprecedented bushfires that I have no idea how to process. But nothing — including the ever-present shroud of acrid smoke that has blanketed my city since November — has brought home the scale of this tragedy quite like the estimation that one billion native animals have been killed.
The Liberals and Nationals have to find a way forward that balances the interests of their supporters with serving the national good. Old arguments and ideological stands need to be re-examined. The PM needs to enable a real debate.
Stopping along a ridge, we beheld the Garhwal Himalaya range as it came into view: a tumble of mountains crowned on the horizon by an irregular, saw-toothed range ... In that brief moment between sunrise and daylight, when a once-secretive world would be illuminated, our wonder at the world was multiplied many times over.
Johnson describes this encounter as one of grandeur, the same feeling some adherents of religion experience when they visit a sacred site or enter a holy place of worship. In this way, nature is a mystical experience. It's the closest feeling I get to an overwhelming presence that is all encompassing and all forgiving at the same time.
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