Five Years

It’s been five years since I last wrote anything here.

Five years, in which several books have been published, a new home bought, a precious small person guided towards becoming a precious bigger person and – perhaps most wildly of all – a whole new little person has joined my world.

So hard to imagine a world without A.

So hard to imagine a life lived in a small inner-city townhouse, instead of a home on a hill, where I watch cockatoos cross the sunrise each morning and the sunset each afternoon.

So much has happened and I still find it hard to find anything to write here.

I’ve always been in awe of novelists who also write about their own lives. I became a novelist because I don’t want to write about me. I don’t want to think about me. I want to hide myself in my books and my characters and become them and become invisible.

But my beautiful friend, Rowena, says I can help other writers by writing here, so I’m trying and I will try. It feels like the hardest, bravest thing, to show yourself, but so much of life is screaming into the vast void around us, “I am here.” Maybe this blog will be something like that, but I hope it’s more and I hope I can help.

When I was young, there was a trend in graffiti art of writing the words, “I was here”, on walls and fences and phone boxes. I always found that really poignant. That’s all we’re doing, really, isn’t it? Trying our hardest to leave our small marks on the world and be remembered. Maybe in trying to be invisible in my books I’m just writing it over and over:

“I was here.”

See, this is why I don’t blog. Who wants to hear the babble of my brain? But if there is something you’d like to hear about, or learn about, or know, you can always contact me through the contact form or on social media. Instagram is best because I like the photos. @direleafehall. It’s private but I’ll let you in 😀 It’s mostly pictures of the backs of my daughters’ heads, and birds and things, and lots of sharing about The Real Housewives. I’d be inclined to say it isn’t deep but maybe it’s deeper than anything else. Family, birds, and women being themselves, bravely, in front of the world.

Anyway. I’ll try and be here more. I hope you’re all warm and happy.