volume one hundred and seventy-six

goodbye

📍Written in the notes app of my phone speeding “home” on a tram in stormy Naarm (Melbourne).

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On Friday night I left a gathering in community that was tonic for my heart. On my walk home, I paused to swing in an empty playground in late daylight with the moon behind me.

I fell off the flying fox hard and scraped my knee. I thought “I miss being a child and scraping my knees all the time”. The constant bruises and scrapes are proof we are trying something new and experiencing our life.

I have a large scar on my left knee from when my sister and I were trying. It lives there as a reminder that once upon a time nothing was too scary to be worth not finding out.

I came home and had a cold shower, the water and soap hit my bruised and bloody knee and the sting snapped me to life.

I put on my one-of-kind-made-by-my-best-friend robe, tied up my wet hair, blared The Beatles and danced around the kitchen. I baked a strawberry, walnut and butter cake as the moon shone through the window, now dark outside, and manifested my future wife as it closed in on 11pm and the house filled with the smell of my creation.

On Sunday I experienced Yayoi Kusama’s exhibition and witnessed the evolution of an artist over a literal lifetime. Each chapter was very different to the last in its own ways but had a common thread in that it was true to herself at that time in her life. I wondered where I put The Addams Family poems I wrote in the back shed with my Dad, while he cleaned the car and we laughed so much. That was the beginning of my writing career, my lifetime.

I had ten seconds before the next person had their turn, time limited by the popularity of the space on a Saturday in Naarm. Ten seconds to put my head inside her pumpkin infinity room. For ten seconds I was nowhere. I was completely clear that I felt like air could pass through me. The space between my ears was infinite. Everywhere I looked, I could see my big goofy smile staring back at me, and staring back at me, and staring back at me… infinitely joyful.

As I moved through the other spaces, I was still there, lingering in the nothing and everything of the vastness that was the solo infinity room. I wondered if I would keep forgetting more of the last day Poppy and I spent together before all of our days became the same infinite loop that has replaced all the years before. Years of richness and living and two-way conversations.

I recently moved these love letters to fortnightly and the spaciousness that opened up for me to explore my other creative projects that have been seducing me even in my sleep has been electrifying. It feels infectious and addictive. I want more of nothing to expand into something.

So this is where I leave you.

This magical playground has allowed me to figure out who I am as a creator and as a writer. I have experimented and allowed for trial and error or trial and success. I will always be thankful to those who stuck around for the ride. But I can’t ignore the call in my gut. I just got a weird spike in subscribers and this might seem like a strange time to step back, but it’s the authentic time to do it, and that’s something I told myself I would always be.

Inevitably, perhaps, more than likely, maybe, we’ll see, something will happen in the future, and my first thought will be to want to share it with you. When I drift into a romanticised daydream I am Mum. When I create art and funnies I am Dad.

Until (and if) that story shows itself, for now, I’ll still send out new episodes of My Dad Stole My Limelight. I invite you to, if you miss leaving me comments like I love to get on these posts, to leave a review on an episode.

You can also follow along with my comedy and travel adventures on Instagram.

Lovely reader, head into the comments and tell me what would you do more of if you had the time?

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three things i struggled with this week:

🤠 My latest genderfluid breakthrough was that I spent a lot of money on cowgirl dresses but I am more of a cowboy. I was so mad at myself for buying them and now I am glad I did to learn this.

😌 Thinking of a third thing I struggled with this week.

three blessings from this week:

☕ I love overhearing the conversations between two tables who become instant but temporary friends.

🍓 Summertime is walking past a fence and hearing the clinking of cutlery on the other side.

🍀 Poppy surprises us now and then and reads something aloud: his favourite football team off Dad’s shirt, a birthday card, his care-home neighbour’s name… Her name is Lucy, he pronounced it Lucky. And I didn’t correct him because I feel very lucky indeed.

three goals for the coming week:

👐 Continue to care for myself. Some things once seemed too hard, and now they do not.

💭 Realising the artist I want to be. Given the chance, I’d want to be the host who comes to chat with the audience in the commercial breaks, too. I’d want to maximise the fun and let them know they — and their time — are important to me and I am grateful for them.

🪐 Dive into open space.

pics or it didn’t happen:

wayfinding signage for an art gallery or for my life?

I love you and I appreciate you reading my letters because I really have enjoyed writing them to you.

🧡, LD (lauren deborah | they/she)